The Beast of Mania
I am quite sure that there is a creature building inside the synapses of my brain called Manic.
I think anyone who possesses some inkling of type A personality has experienced some sort of mania during some part of his or her lives. For me, I think that conflicting need to live in constant productivity and that dreary burnt out nihilism barely kept at bay shakes out life's natural vicissitudes into more manic-resembling waves.
Within the spam of a month, I go through days of insatiable desire for productivity. I stay up late and fill my free time with work (whether it is money-returning tutoring or simply providing students with supplemental, personalised handouts) or items on my ever-expanding list of Things-To-Do. I find sleeping tedious and dreadful, and I often delay the activity as much as possible. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I feel satisfied that actual productivity matches my expected productivity and spend my sleeping hours "relaxing".
I find sleeping un-relaxing since my consciousness shuts down during this time.
Other days, I am gravely disappointed with my lack of efficiency (and this tends to dominate most of my days), and I keep myself busy with extra Ahead-Of-Time work instead. Or whatever it is that I believe I should be doing. My reasoning tends to be that rather than spending those sleepless-anyway hours tossing in bed feeling stressed and depressed over my incompetence, might as well do something with it.
On these "up" days, I tend to actually go to bed at some college-acceptable time, but I become so agitated with inactivity and the failure to immediately slumber that I get up and try to do more work (note that try is a key word here).
I do not know when, but the only way I know now to fall asleep is to work until I literally feel like collapsing.
And those are my "up" days.
Within this same month, I experience days where I am free of this compulsive need to always be accomplishing something. Instead, what replaces it is an overwhelming sense of emptiness and just general exhaustion from the world.
On these days, sleep becomes the kind of friend that promises good things but never delivers, and I find that no matter how much time I devote to this cause, I always feel exhausted. I feel simultaneously too lethargic to work and ashamed by these counterproductive thoughts. I find that my accomplishments were never real accomplishments to start. They were all stepping stones to something greater and better, and really, I have done very little - if at all - with my life.
And that bigger and better dream always looms too intangible and out of reach. These days alternate between trying to do anything but rest and trying to get over that heaviness to get out of bed roll into into months and years.
Most days, though, I just feel incredibly stressed out, and I do anything - inundate yourself in so many self-imposed deadlines that you feel like you can never see an end - just to squash out those pauses where I can feel that pregnant sense of emptiness asking me -
Oh what have you really done with this life?
I think anyone who possesses some inkling of type A personality has experienced some sort of mania during some part of his or her lives. For me, I think that conflicting need to live in constant productivity and that dreary burnt out nihilism barely kept at bay shakes out life's natural vicissitudes into more manic-resembling waves.
Within the spam of a month, I go through days of insatiable desire for productivity. I stay up late and fill my free time with work (whether it is money-returning tutoring or simply providing students with supplemental, personalised handouts) or items on my ever-expanding list of Things-To-Do. I find sleeping tedious and dreadful, and I often delay the activity as much as possible. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I feel satisfied that actual productivity matches my expected productivity and spend my sleeping hours "relaxing".
I find sleeping un-relaxing since my consciousness shuts down during this time.
Other days, I am gravely disappointed with my lack of efficiency (and this tends to dominate most of my days), and I keep myself busy with extra Ahead-Of-Time work instead. Or whatever it is that I believe I should be doing. My reasoning tends to be that rather than spending those sleepless-anyway hours tossing in bed feeling stressed and depressed over my incompetence, might as well do something with it.
On these "up" days, I tend to actually go to bed at some college-acceptable time, but I become so agitated with inactivity and the failure to immediately slumber that I get up and try to do more work (note that try is a key word here).
I do not know when, but the only way I know now to fall asleep is to work until I literally feel like collapsing.
And those are my "up" days.
Within this same month, I experience days where I am free of this compulsive need to always be accomplishing something. Instead, what replaces it is an overwhelming sense of emptiness and just general exhaustion from the world.
On these days, sleep becomes the kind of friend that promises good things but never delivers, and I find that no matter how much time I devote to this cause, I always feel exhausted. I feel simultaneously too lethargic to work and ashamed by these counterproductive thoughts. I find that my accomplishments were never real accomplishments to start. They were all stepping stones to something greater and better, and really, I have done very little - if at all - with my life.
And that bigger and better dream always looms too intangible and out of reach. These days alternate between trying to do anything but rest and trying to get over that heaviness to get out of bed roll into into months and years.
Most days, though, I just feel incredibly stressed out, and I do anything - inundate yourself in so many self-imposed deadlines that you feel like you can never see an end - just to squash out those pauses where I can feel that pregnant sense of emptiness asking me -
Oh what have you really done with this life?
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