The Tao of All Nighters

Pulling an all nighter was not fun last night, and I think you can argue I did it in the most hypcritical fashion.

Sleep is a basic human function, with hormones regulating our sleep pattern, and whether we want to destroy that normal pattern is up to us. (On a side note, I probably quadrupled my lifetime intake of Mountain Dew so I could make until after the exam.) My exam, which for my eastern religion class, was centered around the Chinese philiosophies of Confucianism and Taoism.

The reason I write this is to note two particular discrepancies (EDIT 27.4.2010: PARADOX thats the word) in my studying. One of the main virtues of Taoism is that things happen, and we shouldn't try to fight the natural order of the universe. By staying up all night and not sleeping, I go against my circadian rhythm, which is our body's biological clock.

The second Taoist principle I violated is "unlearning." Now this makes about as much sense as the rest of Taoism, but in order to learn the Tao you need to "unlearn" everything. So by learning what I could about the Tao and didnt "unlearn" anything, I went against another Taoist principle.