I should be in bed right now, but I feel like fighting sleep tonight. Irresponsible I know, namely due to having work in the morning, but I always feel a little more creative at night, a little more alive. I like the quiet, and there’s no pressure to speak or entertain and I can just enjoy being with myself. The everyday noise outside is something I need time to unwind from; I can’t simply shut it off with the bedroom light, I need to shrug it off slowly in the silence of letting go. I wish I didn’t need the outside world to be silent just for me to focus, I wish I could hold that inside and feel that stillness whenever I needed it. Yet it is only due to other people that I feel this, or perhaps my allowing them to encroach on that stillness is what causes this feeling. To quote one of my favorite authors, Fernando Pessoa, “The presence of another person derails my thoughts.”
Will I be tired tomorrow? Most likely. Will I regret staying up so that I could spend some quiet moments to record my thoughts? Possibly, depending on how the day goes. And at the end of the day tomorrow will either of those things matter? Probably not. But right now I feel like doing nothing more than staying up and enjoying my own company. It creates a space, I think, that allows the kind of thoughts I struggle to think all day surface. It could be likened to the phenomenon of getting all your best ideas when you’re in the shower, which is most likely due to the lack of human interaction associated with the act; no one’s there to derail your thinking or influence where your thoughts will go. This night-mania, this feeling of increased creativity and possibility that accompanies me when the clock inches slowly towards midnight, is of course not unique to me. I’m sure there are others doing the same thing right now, for better or for ill, despite what tomorrow expects from them. It feels necessary, as necessary as it does to eat or to breathe. I have no idea where it comes from or why I feel it, but it’s something that I’ve learned not to ignore and cover with sleep. To quote Mr. Pessoa one more time, “perhaps it’s a weariness that needs a slumber far deeper than sleeping affords.”
