jet lag

My mental puzzle of the morning is jet lag.
I imagine myself to be a fairly logical person, and not too badly educated- in fact, I took a university physics class on astronomy that challenged my thinking in this very way- but, set in a comfortable airplane seat staring out the window at ceaseless sunlight, and still a week later trying to fathom which way the world is rotating, I am at a complete loss.
It's an appropriate puzzler for the wee hours on a Saturday when I've already seen enough Discovery Channel and scrubbed the bathroom, and since my demographic-mates are asleep or maybe not home yet, I am applying myself to sorting this out.
There are those who say that jet lag does not exist. They may be the same ones who think there's no point in using soap when you wash your hands or owning more than one t-shirt. I heartily agree with them on all fronts, except for the first hand experience of the last month in which I have been more hopelessly tired and hopelessly awake at all the wrong times than I have ever been before.
I have always been a little frustrated by my body's insistence on sleep. For some reason in my younger years, it would take a great deal of very promising entertainment to actually keep me up when I wanted to sleep. I slept through several loud parties going on IN my dorm room in college. I remember once waking up to my best friend asking me if I wanted her to slap me awake, as we were in a crowded and loud bar- I hadn't had a drop to drink. But all this is nothing compared to my feeling at long-awaited Taco Day at my sister Naomi's apartment, which I was very much looking forward to for many reasons. Yet in the middle of it all, which included toddlers and excited young women trying to get the toddlers to say and do funny things, I was so unable to stay awake that I felt more drugged-up than I ever felt when I was actually on drugs.
So, I Google this Spartan Anti-Jet Lag Theory. What I am surprised to learn (the Spartans are wrong, by the way- haha) is that it all has to do with sunlight. Jetlagtips.com explains (without bringing anything crazy like rotation or gravity into it) that travelling East to West is much less difficult on the system than travelling West to East, simply because of the amount of sunlight.
At the moment I am finding this absolutely charming; imagining us silly humans who think we are so intense and complicated, but are actually essentially potted plants who just need the right amount of water and attention and sunlight. We can be quite fussy little things if it gets thrown off, but we're hearty and adaptable.
At least this is what it seems best to tell myself this morning.