sleepless in frankfurt

i have chronic insomnia. i can't take medication for it since i technically get more than six hours a night. the insomnia comes in because if i had my way, i'd get twelve.

i have been counseled by my recently ex-therapist to count backwards from 100 as a means for falling asleep. i try this, and occasionally it even works. it occurred to me last night as i was counting backwards that this might be some kind of sleep-fordism. reducing my anxiety to a common denominator which can then be dealt with in a series of steps that liquidate the individual existences of these anxieties and hence my feelings to a value that may be exchanged for sleep.

adorno on my insomnia:

"[s]he reduces aura and organization to a common denominator.... [s]he is the real modern type of virtuoso, as band leader....[s]he has gotten to the point where [s]he no longer has to do anything [her]self; [s]he is sometimes even relieved of reading the score by the staff musical advisors. At one stroke [s]he provides norm and individualization; the norm is identified with [her] person, and the individual tricks which [s]he perpetuates furnish general rules. The fetish character of the conductor is the most obvious and the most hidden. The standard works could probably be performed by the virtuosi of contemporary orchestras just as well without the conductor, and the public which cheers the conductor would be unable to tell that, in the concealment of the orchestra, the musical advisor was taking the place of the hero laid low by a cold."

i'm not really sure what that means. it just seemed appropriate.