More aptly, a 6-14-22 system. It doesn’t roll off of the tongue like 6-2-10 but would be less confusing. Some alternatives are 0-6-12-18 and 0-4-8-12-16-20. I have come to refer to these other systems as p6 and p4–period of 6 and 4. They each have different levels of flexibility and efficacy towards collaboration, sleep cycle, social segregation, etc.

I think of this now because I reflect on my schedule: I wake around 0600 daily now, brush and dress. Commute to office immediately and achieve chair-to-chair time of less than 70 minutes. This is about the only time this commute can be done in O(1hr) with no lingering constant that add up to half an hour. I typically arrive at home after 1900 That’s an 11 hr day followed by sleep at 2100. I spend next 3 hrs sorting through a foot of past due and bear past due bills and the November ballot because I haven’t really been able to get home by 1900 for the past month. Family time is minimized…

In my futuristic world, otoh, each person is allowed to work only for exactly 8, or 6 or 4 hrs. I wonder if I counted commute time.

Where I work is too expensive to rent OR buy at my income–which I’ve been told is above median at the institution–at least half of the people whom I work with have equal or worse problems. I mean some people don’t even have families!

There feels like an invisible force pushing the state of the market to continue to be this way. Is it extraordinary for us to ask the invisible hand to grow some brains?
The question then becomes, writing this in my dreams, were we to find ourselves in this idealistic world of mine, where we are able to organize, think and act rationally as a kind–human kind–can we do better?

We can do better! right?

In such a bettered world, would commute be on company’s dime or my dime? (s/dime/time) would it matter? I guess it depends on our criterion. I would say it’s on company’s time, company would say it’s on my time, and the rule maker says: we can impose rules on maximum working hour and minimum working wage, we can certainly enforce some penalty on commuting. 

Suppose it is proven beyond a doubt that commuting is detracting from society–and that’s not a sure thing, we can simply charge a bi-tax, similar to social security tax, where for each minute of commute, the commuter and the destination pays a tax to the government. Since commuting detracts from society totally, all parties involved must pay.

Oh, and also to amend the previous design on overtime. The same bi-tax can be applied to overtime that the employee gooses to take and the company allows him to take. Again under the assumption that we can prove with sufficient certainty that said overtime is detrimental to society.

I am happy now knowing full well that I will jerk awake to my alarm shortly… And this utopic dream sequence of a government penalized, socially motivated, totally organized and advanced commute in which I am riding on air in the hyperloop in a lazy-boyish sofa, basking in lens-flare-free source free radiance, vibration-free, uv-free capsule, surrounded by merv-20 hepa rated air, working on a screen floating in front of me adjusting display to my eyes focus instead of the other way around; this dream sequence will pop and I am back in my living room(trying to not wake my family), surrounded by only merv-11 rated air, eyes still hurting from the previous day’s straining, joints hurting(and that’s completely normal for a man my age) vastly disappointed at the lost of something lovingly wonderful. Absorbing this silent morning, now that the alarm is extinguished, savoring the difference between it and thence that I have awaken just.

I am ready to commute.
The sun has not risen for it is winter in California. 

But, I will rise.

I will rise.

I will rise!