bailing out the raft and patching holes and fighting off sharks

recently on a road trip we listened to the audio version of unbroken, the biography of louis zamperini, who has led a remarkable life. part of this remarkable life involved crashing in a B-24 plane over the pacific ocean during WWII, followed by several weeks of drifting over 2,000 miles somewhere between hawaii and japan with two other men on an inflatable raft. sharks stalk them the whole way. at one point an enemy japanese plane strafes them and shoots the raft full of holes (somehow, none of the men are hit). around the same time, the sharks get more aggressive. so for a few days, the three starving and dehydrated men are fully occupied, with one man bailing the water out of the leaking raft, one man painstakingly patching the holes, and one man beating off the sharks with the oar. if any of the men were to stop their job, they would all die (by shark). so there's no breaks, until enough of the patches begin to hold.

this is not unlike having a baby. one difference is that your life is not at stake, but you think the life of someone more important than yourself is. also, with the baby, the biggest, best, gummiest smile is waiting for you just when you think you can't take it anymore (i don't think anyone smiled in the raft on the pacific). other than that, it's pretty similar. the amount of work* and the neverending fluid is about the same.

*therefore, you must make sleeping part of the work. i.e., it has to get just as much priority as fighting off the sharks or changing the diaper, as it were. ok, ok, fine, there's another difference. sleeping simply could not be part of the pacific scenario.