By Hu Wo (Cuckoo's Song)
MANY people, especially adolescents, do not like to wake up early in the morning, whereas some early birds, which means the rich or the aged, usually get up with the sun. In fact, sleep is undeniably the most fundamental human biological need for the simple reason that we tend to spend one-third of our lives sleeping. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge once stated, sleep is a gentle thing, even beloved from pole to pole in the world. Thus, it is no wonder that most people, from infants to young adults, enjoy sleeping for a long time. By bioclock, an adult person normally needs from seven to eight hours of sleep per day. As someone grows older, it is natural that their sleep time apparently becomes less than average, specifically to four hours of sleep. Whatever is said, the 'early to bed and early to rise’ habit is best for everybody, particularly waking up before the sun peeps out from the east.
Of course, waking up before the sun goes up appears to show someone's industrious spirit to a certain extent, especially that of rural folks. People who rise up early in the morning often think themselves to be better off in the future than those who do not, actually. But to think it again, not getting up late in the morning enables people to get more chances of preparing daily routines and regular jobs to finish them off very quickly in the daytime. Also, as the saying goes, a bird that gets up early can eat well. After enough sleep, everyone feels like their inner energy has grown, as well as under the illusion that they will get more than 24 hours in a day.
As we all know, it is mostly still dark, calm, peaceful and quiet in the early morning to the extent that who it is, whether we are brothers or sisters, cannot be seen clearly. Thanks to the stability and tranquillity of that early morning, it is the best time that we can say our prayers and then practise meditation or mindfulness very well. On the other side, students will be able to study their school subjects with all their strength after adequate sleep at night. Although the early morning is getting dim, the moonlight that has not yet gone is shimmering in the dark sky. Due to the moonlight, the morning sky is kind of beautiful, shining in black and white. Morning persons, who are almost always active in the morning, are given to motivating night persons and lazy people who still have a sound sleep in the early silent morning.
I have heard that Ernest Miller Hemingway, a world-famous American novelist, had never got up late in the morning since he came of age. This is because he would like to enjoy the beauty of the early morning; it is getting brighter and brighter from being dark to some extent as the sun emerges from the horizon in the east. At this moment, the sun is half shining reddish-orange in colour on the east mountain ranges. Because of its brightness, the morning sky seems to have the mixed colours of violet, dark blue, and black. Sometimes, the early sunlight looks like the face of a beloved for loving couples and even the very first hope of all people who wish to start a day with no hurry or without any difficulty. And only the morning sunshine is warm and light to the degree that anybody can see the sun well with the naked eye. In the presence of the early sun's rays, flowers are sort of beautiful; old-age plants are still young like the life of a teenager; the sweet voices of nightingales and cocks are heard in harmony. After all, waking up early in the morning has the simple pleasures not only in a city but also in the country that cannot be precisely counted in number. To be certain, if we wake up early after sleeping deeply, we will feel intrapersonal peace or inner stillness and natural serenity in the morning. So, let us wake up early in the morning from this day onwards.
