A game I like to play with the boys, called Robo Rally, has a restorative "power down" option. You can sit still and default from the game for a series of moves and restore whatever damage you've gotten during the game.
In real life, there are words like "sleep" and "retreat" and "sabbatical" to denote a movement away from the everyday for restorative purposes. Farmers, I understand, sometimes plow a season's crops under so that they can have a richer environment for future crops. "A seed must die in order to bear fruit."
There is also the tradition so many cultures have of a retreat time during menses and/or childbirth. (a blog post on Torah concept of tamei here -- I don't know enough about Judaism to know if this is way out in left field or not -- Faith, are you reading this? -- but I thought it was interesting)
Anyway, just recently I was thinking that periodic power-downs make a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. Since we are composites of body and soul, things that help the spirit also help the body, and vice versa.
Anyway, the reason that Robo Rally occured to me this time was that in this game, you have to announce your decision to power down a move ahead. This means that you spend your last active move preparing for the best power down, and you can't power down just on impulse.
This seems to make sense to me on human, not just game terms. I know that I often default into low-power mode because I've hit a wall and just can't go any faster. But with sleep, and retreat, and even (sorry) menstrual cycle, it seems to work better if I plan a power-down and embrace this time as being a fertile time in a different way.
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