The instance before you fall asleep.
Have you ever considered this? The instance before you fall asleep? Perhaps, you are one of those lucky dullards who sink into oblivion the moment your left ear touches base, or maybe you sleep on your back, supine like Count Dracula in his coffin. But if you are like me, part of the tossers and turners, endlessly kicking the sheets, fluffing your pillow, sweating, getting out to drink water, kicking the sheets some more, you might have considered it. You might know how scary those moments are, how scary the silence is. Because that is the point: for most people, it is the only moment of silence during the whole day. We get up to the bustle of a day starting, schoolkids and commuters outside, people showering and having breakfast inside, the noise of the gears starting up. Then the rest of the day we are always, doing, something. Whether in the office or at home, there is at least radio and television to stop the gaps, should they occur. There is endless inane chatter to nullify the risks of being reminded of something altogether more primitive and closer to yourself. Yes, there still is something closer, there is an unnameable spirit that stirs inside of you of its own account, one not reduced to tears by a cathartic song or choking with laughter at punchlines; it is what throughout the longest part of history we used to call a soul.
That soul is what is troubling us tossers and turners in those silent moments. Even this problem can be alleviated of course: we can just keep the television on, “singing softly as you fall asleep,” or we can put on a record of “natural” sounds: waterfalls, chirping birds and the like. When we were young, there were adults who wanted to read to us, their responsible, reliable drone soundtracking our journey towards happy oblivion into the night. But perhaps instead of being “problem-solvers”, a much-trained skill in our times, we can appreciate the problem for what it is, a warning sign of some sorts. In a recent Intellegence Squared debate, Will Self argued against the motion We've never had it so good and concluded by urging us to “reject the motion and recover your soul.” What he was pointing out was that in the modern society, only that which can be quantified counts. We are used to on-demand, to instant coffee and instant happiness, while the soul needs to be nurtured over time and handled with kid gloves. Most troublingly, the soul does not come with a soul-o-meter, measuring – quantifying – what works and what doesn't. There is no science of the soul, thank God, which is why we as modern men like to ignore the thing. When a second ago I put the term “soul” to google, it gave me first soul music and then the soul as the quote-unquote immortal essence of a person. I don't know what that says about our society, but I doubt it's good.
Many religious as well as pagan societies celebrate the turning of the seasons. Many of these festivals, like the Mexican Day of the Dead, and the Celtic Samhain (which forms the roots of modern-day Halloween) celebrated and revered the dead, and importantly they considered the veil between the natural and supernatural worlds to be especially transparent on these days. Seances and rituals proliferate. Perhaps the moment after the day ends and before sleep has begun, is akin to this. Not that I am claiming anything supernatural, but, just as an analogy, perhaps we can say that the veil that has been spread between us and ourselves is especially thin at those times. We can finally hear our own thoughts, we can finally be honest with ourselves: “what is going on in my life?”
How often do you do this during the day? When I read a book I usually have a record playing in the background. If I don't, I can feel the silence intrude upon me. Reading is not an intrusive enough activity any more to suffice on its own. Similarly, I can listen to music and stare out of the window and still feel like I am doing nothing at all, even though I am listening to music and staring out of a window. But I can't do absolutely nothing. I cannot sit down in a chair in silence, close my eyes, and think. I cannot eat dinner without watching television or conversing with someone. It seems almost as if I cannot not multi-task anymore. It has become the default state.
Sometimes, finally in bed, there is just too much to process. Since this is the only chance your brain gets to be heard, it will damn sure take it.
I don't know if this is a modern ailment, or if it always was this way. I do think it is a modern thing to want too much – perhaps because we are aware of too much, perhaps because the world has expanded too far around us. We cannot allow ourselves the luxury of doing nothing anymore. But what we can do is take the necessary things and slow them down: walk where you wanted to drive or cycle, write a letter instead of an e-mail (instead of a text (instead of a personal message (instead of a tweet))). Better yet, just as a leisure activity, walk without knowing where you are going. Turn left on a whim, turn right on a whim, turn left again; your head might just clear up, you might be inspired in ways you had forgotten you could be inspired. You might just believe in the soul again, which – in case the word soul makes you uncomfortable – also comes down to saying this: you might just believe in unquantifiability, in uncertainty again. In the best-case scenario, you might just get lost.
