4AM Rambles

I like staying up late because it affords me the time to sit with my own thoughts, without distractions and write, think, make plans. When I'm up late I can dream about the finish line, the films and stories I'm not yet writing. I can think about the acoustic guitar I want to learn to play, and the people I miss with more clarity than in the chaos of daytime. I can really get down to the marrow in the bones of what I want, or need. Things that seem unclear suddenly emerge like they're really obvious.

What I need to do with my future. What I want from life. What I feel about who, and why. Sometimes the hard thing is admitting to these revelations, because they're not what everyone else wants or needs to hear. Sometimes, they're not even what I want to hear, especially if they mean putting myself before pre-made plans or notions. Things that might mess with other people.

The pressure to appease the other people in my life is manifest in a diagnosed social phobia/anxiety disorder that I try not to let define me. Every now and again though, it allows me to open up, especially to other people. I found out two of my co-workers also suffer from anxiety today and it immediately put my heart out to them in a way I don't think I would have connected with them otherwise.
It seems like almost everyone I know has suffered through, or is suffering through some kind of anxiety of the times. At dinner I asked my parents if this was the case 30 years ago. Were people just more quiet about their problems because mental illness was taboo? Or is the internet age breeding directionless heart broken kids with carpal tunnel and happy pills to keep them upright during the day?

Staying up late also affords me the brilliant ability to ramble for paragraphs, a constant stream of thought sort of thing. I don't think I should write much longer, it's 4AM. We'll be back to your regular programming soon... I'd just post this because I'd hate for all these thoughts to go to waste somewhere.