Insomnia, A Tragedy of Sleep
For the nights that stretch over a length immeasurable yet so short that you appreciate the blinks!
When you discover sleeping is listed as a hobby at many social media platforms such as Facebook, it makes you wonder just how much sleep an individual can indulge in without securing the labels of lazy, slow, lethargic and so on.
Sleeping beauty might not be the compliment you are in search for, but the longer your eyes remain closed in slumber, the longer the world picks up judgements to deliver. And they are not always pretty!
“I find the nights long, for I sleep but little, and think much.”
Charles Dickens
Sleeplessness, they may have called it some ages ago, when all one had to show for the nights was red eyes, dark circles and a fatigued face. Society would have equated it to restlessness, some big event approaching, or even a tragedy so forlorn that even dreams left the person alone.
Insomnia, what it is called now, also comes with different colours of definitions. It can be a medical condition, a trendy word, a passing fad, an emo thing, or plain attention seeking.
We live in a world where the ability to sleep peacefully has become a heaven sent gift for many. And if our eyes despair the glare of lights and the silence of darkness, who do we blame?
A consistent sleeping schedule is considered vital for everything healthy we can think of. An ideal 8 hours of sleep is considered good. It aligns the body clock, solves skin problems, solves body problems, may not solve mental problems, but is anyone actually interested in that?
For many people, their minds are timeless machines, they exist to never cease, something just around the crevices ready to burst at the forefront, and sleep leaves for a better partner.
For some, it can be a long drawn ailment, for some it can be a recent occurrence.
For everyone, it is the silent misery against which the eyes protest, and the mind wins.
Super busy lives, complex relationships, hectic work environment, an overflowing plate of commitments, Insomnia may seem a reasonable outcome.
There’s a visceral beauty to it, the want to sleep and the need to think. Of course, many solutions lie a click away, scented candles, meditation, lo-fi playlists, the plain old lying down for hours, and many still bemoan that nothing works.
Perhaps these solutions are more like companions to the sleepless nights, a sense of camaraderie, like occurrences that keep company to the eyes who delight in sleep but are void of the ability to.
For every night the brain refuses to shut down, the sleep gives way to the sweeping victory of thoughts and dreams scatter in a fantasy that was never meant to be. And perhaps these are the ramblings of a person after a sleepless night, but hey, no judgement. Insomnia happens. And you become your own best friend.
