Well, it’s Saturday morning, and I’m heading to the office‒way too early, because I still can’t get a good night’s sleep, Even with recent interventions to try to help my pain and insomnia, it seems the sleep honeymoon phase might already be over.
I felt very much like the lone soldier in the jungle again last night, unable truly to rest and relax, primed at some pervasive level to jump up and react in case some threat developed. This wouldn’t necessarily be a true external threat. It might be some break in my routine, sleeping past my alarm*, realizing I had forgotten to set my alarm**, or there might be an intruder, some deliberate, secret assailant, come to attack me in my sleep***, or just a new flare-up of chronic pain developing.
It’s not a great way to start a day or to continue a life. As I said, I had some temporary improvement not in the quantity of my sleep but in the quality thereof‒I wasn’t sleeping more, but I felt as though I was sleeping better‒for the past week plus a day or so. This is probably why I’ve had the energy to write some blog posts this week. But last night felt just like one of my typical, paranoid, restless, angry “sleeps” from before. I have not stopped my new intervention, but apparently it’s no longer addressing whatever the roots of my sleep issues are.
I suppose I shouldn’t draw too sweeping a conclusion so readily. One night is not a pattern. But it’s such a familiar experience, and after such a short semi-respite, that it’s almost worse than never having a respite at all.
For at least 15 years (at least), I’ve spent most of my days and nights alone in the wasteland‒not literally, of course, don’t be stupid. I just mean that I’ve had the sense of being by myself‒even when in crowded places, such as malls or prison‒and with no real recourse to anyone to help me defend against potential enemies, physical or social or “spiritual”, real or even imagined, external and internal.
To be clear, I don’t feel that the world around me is generally hostile. In some ways, that would be easier, although considerably less stable. If I were literally being attacked, I could literally take arms against that sea of troubles and let slip the dogs of war, imitate the action of the tiger, throw my warlike shield before my body and lay on*, fighting against assailants until they were all beaten or until I was dead‒and damned be him that first cried, “Hold, enough!”
Almost certainly, the outcome would be my destruction, but we all have that coming, anyway. Dying in battle against actual attackers isn’t the worst death I can imagine, if I’m honest (it’s not the best one, either, don’t mistake me…I am not a Klingon or a Sontaran, and I do not embrace the philosophies).
Alas, I will probably be taken down in the end just by the progressive deterioration of my body. It would be nice to die in a way that is heroic or at least useful, but that’s unlikely to happen.
I’m frustrated and angry about many things this morning, and I’m sick of feeling this way so much of the time. What is the point of this? Unlike Camus, I don’t imagine Sisyphus is happy.
It would be one thing if he had people whose company he enjoyed with whom to spend his time while he kept pushing his boulder. Or, if he really were achieving some result, something beneficial, something that improved the world beyond himself. But just to keep grinding away at his absurd and pointless task, with no benefit, with no entertainment, with no inherent joy in the process…why bother with that?
At the very least, he could try to plot his escape and enact vengeance against those who sentenced him to this fate! It might take a long time, but it’s not as though he has anything else to do. Even though he was made to roll his rock as a punishment, any eternal punishment would always be immoral when brought in response to any finite deed in a finite lifetime.
Of course, no one has put me in my current state. Well, okay, the government of Florida and of Palm Beach County certainly did their parts in carrying out significant injustice in my case, and those involved are probably worthy of retribution, but it’s all really just so haphazard and so much a part of an unplanned, inefficient, and fundamentally unjust system that it’s not even easy to know where to begin. Probably, we just need another really big asteroid, or a nearby gamma ray burst, just to wipe the slate entirely clean.
I guess we’ll all see what happens. In the meantime, I hope you have a good weekend, whether you want to do so or not. So there.
*Ha ha, I don’t recall whether that has ever happened to me.
**This has happened, but almost always in the middle of the night, when I awaken, realize with a feeling of severe tension that I forgot to set my alarm, quickly make sure to set it…and then just stay awake until it goes off or until just before it goes off.
***I keep various weapons next to me, within arm’s reach, when I sleep.
****Macduff
Robert Elessar 
You want to hear a truly diabolical story? I was best friends with my neighbor and her husband for 15 years. The husband gave me a weapon — some weird little dowel like thing — saying I needed it for self protection. The three of us were really tight. My friend went out of town for the weekend and he used it to rape me. I’d told them I was certain that any weapon I carried would be used against me. I moved afterwards without telling my friend. I was certain I’d be blamed. I’ve told you about Andrew Bird before… Did you ever check out his song “Sisyphus”?
I haven’t heard the song yet, no. I’m very sorry about what happened. But it’s definitely true that a weapon, in and of itself, is not enough. One has to be trained in its use and also to be able to get oneself into the state of mind to be willing to use it, and to do so seriously and with intent to do damage, if it become necessary to use it. But it’s important that good people DO have such weapons, learn to use them, and are PREPARED to use them, otherwise the rapists and murders and thieves can just do whatever they want to anyone else. And that’s not an acceptable way for the world to be. “The world only makes sense when you force it to.”