I find it extremely hard to fall asleep without pills. My mind just won’t let go of consciousness. Because the universe is wrong. Everything is wrong. Nothing is ok. And something must be done.
But there’s nothing to be done. What’s done is done. Can’t un-see what’s been seen. Can’t forget how it felt. Can’t pursue the one thing that actually seems meaningful now.
So my mind keeps me awake, over a problem that can’t be solved.
In order to pursue a life that seems meaningful, you have to be a semi-decent human being. I’m not capable of reaching that low bar. Ever. I’ve infected my mind with the ultimate in depravity, and there’s no cure.
So I can’t be the person I’d like to be. Someone who’d deserve a decent life.
And yet I’m still here. Still alive, with the awareness of what that life entails. And I’m constantly torturing myself over that. Because I can’t let go.
And I need to. Because I need to sleep, and the pills are less effective the more you use them, and I need to be up in 4 hours to clean and tidy and hopefully give the impression that I’m not a depraved degenerate with no meaning in his life. And my head aches, and my digestion’s breaking down, and I’m so God-fucking lonely it’s unreal. And I have to try and hide all that.
And if I could let go of life, then this wouldn’t be an issue. And if I could let go of meaning, then it wouldn’t be an issue. But I can’t.
5 comments
You’d think this highlights the evolutionary purpose of insomnia. When faced with a problem, the organism’s mind kicks into overdrive, disallowing sleep until a solution is found.
But the problems of the human race don’t seem to have any solution. Or at best, those who are staying up all night trying to fix a problem–say climate change–are countered by a more powerful force that’s trying to make the problem worse (rich industrialists). So once again we’ve created an unnatural hell for ourselves where there is no answer but to suffer.
I also require pills to sleep. Every night of my goddam life. Like you said, they lose efficacy as we build up a tolerance, but I’ve had some luck jumping between different medications. And in a pinch when nothing works I stop taking pills entirely, suffer a week of pure agony, then go back to pills the following week.
It’s like a clutch slipping. Slowly ratcheting down while the mechanism gets worn down to the metal. But it works in gasps.
I think this is especially an issue with modernity. For most of human history, the options open to someone facing an acute problem mainly consisted of either praying, or killing something/someone (or both). I know there were still people tormented by regret and unfixable mistakes, but I think for most people expectations were so low, they didn’t lose much sleep on what could’ve been.
I know with my specific issues, it’s unlikely I’d ever have got myself into such a mess if I’d just been born even a decade earlier. Technology can provide power and freedom, but it can also introduce many new ways to torment yourself.
I take non-prescription pills (diphenhydramine), which I believe are less strong than stuff you need a prescription for. I’d feel scared to take something stronger, though I don’t know if that’s a rational fear. Even the ones I take leave me feeling exhausted the day after, and they make it harder to concentrate on work. But they do work for maybe 3 nights in a row. Then I get a night of not sleeping at all, which is hellish. I don’t think I could take a going a whole week without.
bingo, modernity is the dark horse that’s fucking up the game. maybe it’s part of evolution…. well of course it is… but I feel like it presents a critical shift what many of us won’t survive.
If you think of it, modern networking & instant 24hr information is what our species needed to pull itself to the next level. But rather than giving us a greater sense of unity, like a hive species, we’ve become more fragmented, isolated and self destructive. I say ‘we’ referring to us outliers. I’m sure the human race at large will push its way forward.
The horrifying thought is that maybe this sudden shift is designed to pare the herd. Get rid of the outliers, misfits & misanthropes who can’t integrate themselves. Maybe these “new ways to torment yourself” are part of nature’s unfeeling plan to shave off the ones who aren’t willing or able to play ball. It’s all so logical in its cruelty that you can’t help but laugh.
Yes, it’s like our brains aren’t ready for the new tech. You’re right that we’re outliers, but I’m not sure humanity as a whole is presently capable of adapting to things like constant internet access. We’re still deeply tribal as a species, and it’s like people still feel the need to form divisions, even online, and take sides over different interpretations of reality (“fake news”).
I generally put my hope for humanity’s future in some kind of synthesis with technology, that upgrades our minds and frees us of the need for an “other” to hate. But I don’t know how you’d do that while preserving the things that we value – individuality, interpersonal relationships etc.
I tend not to assume “design” or “plan”. ” “Paring the herd” is always taking place, in a sense. Different conditions favour different traits. It can feel cruel and unfeeling to us. But I don’t see a reason to infer intent behind that. It seems to me it could just as easily be a blind process, with no intended outcome.
You’re so right, my use of the word “cruelty” is entirely subjective. Nature keeps rolling forward like a glacier that’s neither cruel nor benevolent. It just is.
I suppose we humans have invented unnatural concepts like fairness, goodness & karma because…. well actually I have no idea why.
But there does seem to be some survival benefits to being “good” (i.e. forming mutually beneficial alliances with others rather than a blood bath to the death). Whether it’s in nature’s plan, humans have a stubborn instinct to improve the world for everyone. Whether this instinct is the beginning of a positive leap forward, an upgrading of the mind like you said, or whether it’s just another one of nature’s random directions that could just as easily end in extinction, is anyone’s guess.
For what it’s worth, I also have optimistic thoughts that future generations will somehow blend themselves with technology in a benevolent way. Anything to distance ourselves from the savage ‘reptilian brain’ that still controls us. But we’re talking centuries or millennia in the future. Technology is so new–for that matter, industrialization is barely 100 years old–we’re bound to suffer a lot of growing pains before we learn how to harness it.
In the meantime, we’re fucked lol
Especially our generation… Gen X, Millennial and I’ll even include Gen Z… we’re like the first amphibians that crawled out of the ocean and most of us will probably die before we learn how to survive on land.