seasons | winter solstice | psychology | lifestyle

Light — And Dark

Lynn Dorman, Ph.D.; J.D.
4 min readDec 22, 2022

dark — and light

image by gdizerega on Pixabay — customized by author

I have often said that I am like a bear — going into hibernation around Thanksgiving and coming out of it around my birthday — which is at the end of January. I'm more lethargic at this time. I still get things done but everything is more tiring and it's because it's more dark out.

Years ago, I drove from Boston to Alaska and back again [about a 34,000 miles round-trip] I realized when I was up in the Yukon and it was light out basically 24 hours a day I was never very tired — just did things.

I was in a campground and I don't think many of us spent time sleeping because we sat at a campfire and chatted all night. People from all over the world were there and we had so many interesting storeis to tell — sometimes we'd still be sitting there when somebody would say hey it's time for coffee and we’d realize that we’d been up all night talking. It never got dark.

After I left the Yukon, and then left Alaska, and was down in Washington, Oregon, and California — I noted that I was getting tired around 9 when it started to get dark — and I had the brainstorm right then that I'm a light dark person.

I like to be awake when it's light out and I like to be hibernating when it's dark out. Given…

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Lynn Dorman, Ph.D.; J.D.

NYC native, snarky, opinionated octogenarian, educated [with PhD and JD]- I write, I talk, I think, I opine, I teach — and will do so until I can’t.