We take you now to a midnight view of what it means to be “awake” when the rest of the world is asleep and peaceful.
It all starts with just one thought. Then it’s two. Then three. Next, you’re awake and you’re lying in bed thinking about things which only serve to keep you up. Meanwhile, it’s late.
The numbers on the alarm clock are bright red and the time keeps ticking away.
You try to figure out how many hours of sleep you could get if you just fell back to sleep. You think about the hour when you have to get up as if this is a deadline; whereas, the day is ahead of you and ready or not – HERE IT COMES!
You’d probably be okay if you could just fall back asleep, right?
The operative word here is “if.”
Meanwhile, the hours are dwindling away before the alarm goes off. Then there’s work to deal with. Then there’s the ideas you have about the work you’ll have to do when you get there. Not to mention the unsettled anxiety which applies to the people who you’ll have to deal with; which again, this information is only something that serves to keep you up.
This is this thing we call insomnia. This is what happens. This is what goes on when the thought machine takes over and the committees in your head decide to reconvene at the worst time, namely after midnight or after any hour when the rest of the world is asleep.
This is me too.
See me?
I’m awake and trying to sleep.
I’m trying to close my eyes and keep the thoughts from dancing around in my head.
Can you relate?
This is where my mind starts to calculate the math of different items of my life which are far from realistic.
But more, half of the emotional ideas are often far from accurate and worse, they’re even further from pertinent to our lives.
Yet, we keep tabs on everything. We keep thinking and working ourselves up
(over nothing).
We think to the point where our mind goes into overdrive.
Next, we start to recalculate some of our old conversations or relive unfair moments in our head which, again, all of this is information that only serves to keep you awake.
There is something about rejection or rejection based thinking.
There’s something about the way these thoughts lead to the conduit of old memories and old experiences which tend to promote an emotional stir. All of this is information that only serves to keep us up.
The mind is an interesting thing.
I know this is true.
I know that insecurity is a whisper that can be louder than a scream. I know about the internal voice. I know about this all too well, especially, when I am awake at night sifting through the ideas of our troubled outcomes or the worries that somehow, I’m going to be left out.
I have worries about being unwanted, unloved and unremarkable enough to be desirable or included.
I can offer this as an irrational search that takes up space in my mind.
I consider the mind to be similar to a large storage facility – our head is like a building, or for example; I envision our emotional mind to be a tall building on a hill at nighttime. It’s dark. Of course, there are lights on in nearly all the rooms because this would indicate either someone (or something) is there.
I am thinking about the times when I was told to shut the light after leaving a room. I am thinking about the lessons in school where teachers told us to always shut the lights and that somehow, in our little warped and wise-ass minds, we thought it would cost the school money to turn the lights on and off – so we did. Of course, someone would get yelled at. (Usually me.)
The teacher would shout, “Stop wasting electricity!!”
But before I digress, I want to think about those words of advice: Stop wasting electricity!
I view the idea of this mental storage facility as a picture of the mind; in which case, every room is a representation of a thought or an idea.
Every light that’s been left on is a representation of a feeling or an emotion and, together, all of the above is a draw against our personal electricity.
What does this do?
It drains us.
I wonder though.
I wonder what our energy levels would be like if the lights were shut in the rooms that were no longer necessary.
I wonder what our energy would be like if we stopped entertaining the thoughts and ideas which only serve to keep us up.
I wonder what this would do for our personal clarity or how this would affect our relationships.
There are times when I have surrendered myself to the bottomless pit of emotional quicksand.
There are times when I let this take me away; which again, all this does is serve to keep me awake.
I am a very real person.
I have faults and flaws.
I have challenges and difficulties.
I have times when my thought machine unravels and then that’s it!
I’m awake and wishing I could sleep.
Or I’m awake and checking the clock to see how much time I have left before the alarm goes off.
The thought machine is very interesting to me.
I cannot begin to consider the strange little commonalities we have between us.
Say, for example, when we say something that hits a chord with us and what I mean is there are times when we speak and the last words we spoke sound idiotic or foolish. You can hear the last words repeat in your head because, of course, we just sounded so stupid! The words are almost echoing. But the more you try to save yourself by saying something different – all you do is dig in deeper.
I am wondering what would happen if we were able to clear out the mental storage rooms. What would happen if we were to shut the lights and stop wasting our own electricity?
What would happen if we were to stop interacting with useless ideas that have no real value to us in our lives. Instead, what would happen if we chopped our useless consumption of wasted energy in half?
It’s a trip, no?
The thought machine . . .
We all have one and we’re all so quick to tell people, “Just don’t think like that.”
This is me . . .
Right now. Tired as ever.
But as tired as I am nothing, no one and nobody can or will ever stop me from coming here to write – or sitting with you.
Sometimes, I think I’m crazy but then I realize one of the best lessons I’ve ever learned.
Crazy people don’t think they’re crazy which means I’m more sane than I realize.
Oh, and by the way – stupid people don’t think they’re stupid either.
No, they think they’re smart . . .
This means you and I are probably a lot better off than we think.
It’s just the thought machine that tells us differently –
unless, of course, we shut the lights out.
Then we won’t have to waste so much energy
which does nothing else but serves our insomnia – and keep us awake.
The Written Addiction 