Searching for a Clearer View

I'm running on four hours of sleep, and not a whole lot from the previous few nights either, so at the moment (and probably for the rest of the day) I am wracked with the symptoms of sleep deprivation. Nevertheless, I have just caught a glimpse of what it might mean to be a "morning person".

Two things to note here: The first is my penprevious post, in which I used the term "incredible lucid solitude". The second is that I have resolved (only incidentally in January) to wake up at 6 am every day for the entire semester, on the grounds that I will adjust, and it will be easier than waking up at 6 am (thoroughly unadjusted) two days a week. Today was the first day in weeks that I've woken up so early, and I am quite emphatically Not Adjusted yet.

Anyhow, my point is that I have just experienced something akin to the normal lucidity that for me is more common to staying up incredibly late, not waking up incredibly early. The drowsiness has dulled it, of course, but I get the feeling that once I have adjusted, I'll have five days a week containing several hours of clearheadedness, insight, and inner peace. Assuming, of course, that I am capable of adjusting. I've never been a morning person, but I'm starting to see that it might not be so different from being a night owl, after all. Just colder.

Clam's Search for Meaning

Sometimes I feel as if I lead a charmed life. I feel privileged, knowing that I can achieve anything I put my mind to, and I remind myself not to take that privilege for granted.

But sometimes I get the feeling that I've been spending my life diligently avoiding any desires that can't be fulfilled. I can always have anything I want, as long as I'm careful about not wanting what I can't have. Far from being uplifting, this is really very sad. What it means is that I can't fail, so not only do I stop before attempting risky-but-surmountable heights, but I also avoid the learning experiences of failure. It's kind of a fox and the grapes thing, although I don't think I'm bitter about it.

This is an exaggeration, of course. I have taken risks before, and I have not led a life entirely free of failure. The degree of it, though, is really quite humbling. I've been trying to write my resume, and I've got it pretty well sorted out now, but I am choking on the "personal statement" part. I know that my first job out of college doesn't determine my entire career, but I'm expected to have some idea of what I want to do in life... a passion. And right now, I'm feeling pretty dispassionate.

It seems to me that the reason for this lack of passion is fear. What I'm going to do in a job is very different from what I've been doing in school, so by necessity my passion will be something I've never done before--I need to be moving forward, essentially. What that means is that I need to want something that hasn't been shown (through experience) to be achievable... so I feel like I'm taking a leap of faith. Yes, I know I've been learning this stuff in school, and I've even been pretty successful doing actual work at my internships. But it's still just far enough out there to give me fear, and we all know what the Bene Gesserit say about fear.

So what are my options? Well, if I'm opposed to stagnation (which, for the record, I am), it seems like there's no option but to face the fear and overcome it. Kind of platitudinous, I admit, but it's much easier said than done. How to face it is the real question. I'll get back to you when I figure out an answer.

Waking Up Is Hard to Do

Whenever I find myself scheduling an activity before 6 am (or, more likely, being scheduled), I generally choose to go without sleep rather than wake up that early. Funny that I've never noticed the pattern before, or at least never noticed how tenacious it is. It's not surprising, given that falling asleep can be a difficult thing to do on demand, while waking up on demand is merely painful, not hard to accomplish. In some cases it is the only sane option (as tonight, when the potential sleeping time was between drinking champagne at midnight and heading out at 4 am), and in some cases it can be insanely inadvisable (as my weekend trip to London, when I tried to save a night's hostel money by simply strolling around until my 6 am flight out). There ought to be something profound about the fact that I so despise waking up... or more importantly, the incredible lucid solitude only found at 5 am, when all the world's asleep.

At the moment, though, I can't think of what it is, and I'm just writing this down so I won't forget. I'm awfully tired, you see...