Counting Down the Days

May 31: A Beast

I think there is a benefit to just being tired sometimes—mentally, physically, or otherwise. You are at your most honest when you're tired because you aren't bothering to argue your way out of having feelings. You drop the leash of the beast, and you let it explore of its own volition. When you're not tired, you always have to restrain the beast: tell it to sit, stay, and roll over. You rationalize, think things through. You always have to convince yourself that other people's opinions are important and that hope and positivity are worth anything. But of course, hope and positivity are a form of reason which, as we just established, takes effort. Sometimes when you're tired, reason takes far too much effort, which is why you (or I, at any rate) will occasionally spiral into existentialism and gloom.

The funny part is that people can be tired for any reason, or no reason at all. Sometimes I am tired because I just finished a three-day competition. Sometimes I am tired of dealing with irritating people. Sometimes—like today—I am tired because I left my window open when I went to bed, and the air currents kept slamming my bedroom door open and shut all night long. To think that sometimes something so trivial can yield such dismal feelings is utterly absurd. And yet, there it is.

And indeed, the fact that there the feelings are, waiting, is why I believe there is a benefit to being tired. When I wake up tomorrow, hopefully refreshed and invigorated, I will know what my feelings are. When I set the beast free, I observe its behaviors, so when I pick up the leash that I dropped and slip the collar around its head, I will know its ways.