The Desire to Sleep and Find Meaning While Awake

Here's something I wrote shortly after starting my internship in the Boeing structures lab:

I can’t sleep. I’m not really sure why. I was exhausted this morning. More than almost anything I just wanted to turn off the monitor, lie down somewhere soft, and close my eyes, and now that that’s what I’m supposed to do my body seems to want nothing to do with it. I can’t stand this feeling, like I’m an unwitting pilot in a vehicle sliding on ice. My mind, and my body, I mean. Shouldn’t they just agree? The tension is such a pain when they don’t.

I’m worried that my body simply won’t adjust to this new sleep schedule. The second letter in “schedule” I wrote just now came out as a “k” at first, not the “c” that it should’ve been from the start. I don’t think I used to make those kinds of mistakes, and it’s worrying me that I’m making them more often now. Maybe I’m getting better at recognizing and remembering my mistakes, but the idea that I’m screwing up simple things more often because I’m not getting enough sleep seems more plausible for some reason.

Tonight I’ve had the strangest sense of freedom. Recently it hit home that I had it completely backwards on a key life decision. I used to think that going to graduate school, reaching the highest academic level I could reach, was a good decision. I was wrong, deeply, vastly wrong, on this count.

Now that I realize that, the future is wide open in a disconcerting way. The variables are all still there, but the equations are invalid and have to be thrown out. The system is underconstrained, and it’s hard for me to make heads or tails of what’s right anymore. My future is like a blindingly bright light, and I can’t get my eyes to focus on what’s out there in the glare.

I have this gnawing feeling that I’m supposed to do something important. But what, exactly? Cancer exists, no one’s ever set foot on Mars, social security is a Ponzi scheme, and humans are cranking Earth's thermostat up in an uncontrolled fashion. I believe these are all problems, and I’d like to see them rectified. My time is limited and I have strengths and flaws and preferences that no one else has. This means that I need to get serious about priorities and putting my time to good use on a plan that makes sense. The current plan isn’t necessarily bad, it just needs to be evaluated in a fresh light.

Now I can barely keep my eyes open. Maybe I just needed to get some authentic expression across today, when I spend so much of the day donning and doffing the personas I’ve developed to get by in this new northern world. Be authentic. Be nice. Be expressive. Be honest inside and outside. Like Alice, I give myself good advice. Hopefully some day I’ll take it.