Tuesday, September 15, 2026: 8:30 AM: I slept for five and a half hours last night. This sleep thing seems a bit off kilter no matter what I do. But I’m functioning, so that’s a plus.
What I have found over the past six months since I got my watch is that I’m unable to accurately tell the difference between being awake and asleep. In other words, sometimes I think I’ve been awake a lot longer than I actually have, while at other times, I feel like I only slept for a few minutes when, in fact, hours have gone by.
It’s enough to drive anyone crazy, I guess. But I haven’t reached total madness yet, so it’s all good.
Sleep might just be one of those things I never have full control over. And if I’m honest with myself, it just doesn’t matter. I’m fortunate enough to have the kind of life where, if I need to drop off into La-La Land for a little while during the day, I can.
The more I look at things in my life, the more I realize just how much cookie-cutter, mold-type bullshit we are taught. It’s counterintuitive and therefore counterproductive in my world.
Have they done any nonprofit studies on how blindness affects sleep cycles? “I doubt it.”
Do the sleep cycles of blind people differ from those of sighted people? “Maybe!”
If my cycles are off based on what experts say they should be, does that mean I have a problem? “Fuck no!”
So why am I killing myself trying to adjust something someone else says is a problem when I simply cannot fit the mold? “I have no idea!”
I have set things up so that my watch thinks I’m gunning for seven and a half hours of sleep. I’m lying to it intentionally, of course. But it’s too stupid to know the difference between reality and fantasy anyway.
Besides, when it comes to sleep, the Apple Watch SE 3 is setting us all up for failure anyway. It is clearly more algorithm-based than anything else.
When using this watch, I’ve noticed that it doesn’t matter whether I come close to the sleep goal I set or not. The watch isn’t going to give me credit for achieving only the four and a half hours of sleep I set as my goal. “The watch doesn’t give a shit about that.”
I’ve also noticed that the watch, if allowed to, will push me to do more on the exercise end of the equation. While in some instances this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, you can do some serious damage to your body if you aren’t careful. Failing to recognize when you’ve gotten hooked on the dopamine hits triggered by smartwatch goal-achievement notifications may cause you to push too far.
Of late, I’ve been taking a break from my watch for a few days here and there. I’ve noticed that the watch seems to penalize me for doing this. But that’s the watch’s problem if it doesn’t like it or was programmed not to like it.
Like AI, the smartwatch is simply a tool. It provides a point of reference for me and nothing more.
Technology is an extension of me in the sense that it helps me fill in the blanks normally covered by eyesight. Since I don’t have eyesight, tech is the substitute, albeit a flawed one. Keeping this in mind at least helps me keep from taking the bait when the watch or iPhone attempts to run my shit, its cookie-cutter programming failing to take my disability-specific needs into consideration.