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I just realized that I like LEDs flickering in the night. Those little lights from the mobile phone, the laptop, the desktop computer, the TV set, the remote control, the digital fan etc. give offer me buoys in the black atmosphere of the night.
An electronic night.
We are trully used to too much light during the night…One of my gradma’s house is so built that most of the rooms turn pitch black at night. You see nothing, you can put your hand on you face and only feel it. One night I felt so paniked and uneasy that I stoop up for hours not being able to fall asleep.
Yes, I know it’s a very old instinct. We need some source of light during the night because we lost a lot of our power to orient in the dark and we need to see the face of the enemy when approaching it.
Yes, it’s an instinct we build even before we are born. There is some light in the womb, and studies have shown that babies tend to turn toward the light when mothers are out in the sun, etc. Oh, and people go blind if they stay too long in perfect darkness. It happened to some explorers who remained stuck in a cave without lights. They followed the drift and the direction of the water to escape but it took them so long…
I am sure it is an instinct. But people around there don’t seem to mind it that much, being in complete darkness. Maybe because they do feel quite safe in that quiet village…I for one am used to the lights from within and outside the house!
Of course, it’s because we don’t know what’s beyond that black curtain.
BTW, I don’t like the same LEDs during the day. Can you imagine, there still are mobile phones with signal LED that can’t be turned off!
You’re mentioning the daytime leds reminded me of some non-stop lights I really hate: that casino across the street from TNB. It has a weird looking green wall and the lights are just unbearable during the day.
As for phone leds, I am sure they could be stopped in most cases…
Oh, I can’t stop myself from giving a comment from the Land Of The Midnight Sun -point of view:) This time of year it never gets dark here in northern Sweden, yesterday at midnight the sky was still blue and the sun lit up the horizon. Amazing, really. And I wonder what effect this has on mankind? In our dark winterns the suicidal-rate is high. But in these light summers, we should be more alive then others? (Or maybe just more tired since it’s hard to fall asleep without that calming darkness:)
Alina, I know those casino lights. It’s such a waste of electricity… I remember, during the communist regime, how my father improvised a light connected to a car battery, so that I could do my homeworks during blackouts.
Monika, I’m so sorry I can’t experience that…
I don’t think there is a very close relationship between the lack of light and the suicide rate in Northern countries. Although Ake Daun is saying something about that in his book, „Swedish Mentality”. I think one of the causes is the wealth and high standards of living. Availability of all products, high salaries, all that should give you the need to socialize, but in fact you get more isolated…
Yes I know it’s an interesting fact that many of my Swede friends nowadays are depressed and on antidepressive drugs when it seems that we in Sweden could live our whole life in welfare.
I heard another explanation to this: it’s all the choices that tear us down. Before, it was just a straight path, similar to the one your parents took. Now, we can choose school, education, country, job, style, sexuality, religion, subculture…
And sometimes to turn those small flickering lights on or off.