It’s pretty stupid to not get any sleep, isn’t it? Maybe if we wrap it in an expensive term we could excuse ourselves from neglect.
Feeling a bit horrible in the days to come, and you won’t be all that ready to do much of anything. Doesn’t it seem like indulging in a drug though?
Because when you’re sleep deprived, you don’t think about anything much. That’s the function of most drugs: shrinking your awareness. The days pass effortlessly because you’re in a half-daze, and whatever ought to be a mental painful no longer registers.
Staying up is an answer to not wanting to deal with anyone or do anything much. Whatever show you put on for the night won’t be remembered, but that’s partially the point.
The reasons behind staying up vary from person to person, definitely, though at its core is escapism, maybe. Not wanting to face tomorrow. Because tomorrow is filled with the things you’d rather forget, or just sleepwalk through.
It’s ironic, since sleep is the prime escapist choice. You get transported to another dimension, and you get a nudge of how little your troubles matter nestled against the bubble-wrap fabrics of consciousness. Why is it that one is deprived of the very thing they’re wishing for?
I think it’s because sleep can feel instantaneous. Even if it’s not. Especially if you’re a lucid one. Like living a whole life within a span of a dream, or a two-week coma.
But if you aren’t much of a dreamer then it’s like closing to open your eyes. Meanwhile if you just sink into your chair and let the hours pass it feels like a final assertion of control: these are my hours, and I’ll spend them how I like, even to my detriment. I won’t be a machine.
I won’t be at peak performance. I will laugh at everything since a lack of sleep makes you ditzy and indifferently shuffling.
I won’t show up to your plans. I won’t have much to say and there won’t be any guilt about it because now we’re in waking life and there’s nothing to be hyper-vigilant about anymore.
Most importantly, I don’t have to confront myself and my seemingly accruing failures. The mounting days, calendars slipping. You don’t have to confront the insanity of living. You don’t have to justify your existence to anyone anymore.
There is nothing to say, nor nothing to shuffle about, nor anything to recount, nor stories to listen – when you’re in the dead of night so you’re completely permeating.
I think the 2D and 3D world can be lackluster when you could have a 4D existence; the fare is a little sleepiness, but the surrealist patterns that pop in-between the inane glows a hope to follow. It’s ironically a way to keep sane.
Or, of course, these are all lies and pleadings the same as any drug addict. Those who’ve tasted opium describe it as an angel’s embrace. I guess staying up late is like being strangled by one. One can get lost in their beauty and shadow-white feathers before the eyes start bulging – smiling through a final breath.
Because with this nightly asphyxiation nothing changes – it’s not a rebellion, but an act of submission. Destroying one’s self since one cannot assert what one wants and march towards it.
By each step so one may finally look forward to the morning.