Why do I do my best writing at 2:30 AM?
It seems that there's something about obscenely late nights that unleashes the muse on my brain. It could be written off as a few isolated instances, but if my count is correct, two out of the last three times I've been up that late have resulted in two of my favorite poems I've ever written. It's pretty touchy-feely stuff, not the sort of pragmatic prose I usually feature here. For instance, here's a stanza in the most recent addition to my nocturnal canon:
"Every current that puts us in motion
Is one step approaching the end
But we can’t sit here stagnant, in fear of the ocean
And knowing we’re rounding the bend"
Looking back on it, I might replace "current" with "oar-stroke" or something similar, which adds more agency to the setting in motion while sticking with the nautical theme. But other than minor changes like that, I'm struck by how much I enjoy these raw, unedited outpourings of my sleep-deprived mind. It almost feels as though they're written by someone else, as though even the memory of my fingers hitting the keys must be some sort of illusion.
Perhaps I'm less guarded when my mind is in this state. The poems I tap into my Notes app at stupid-o'clock are, even more than most of my other writing, intrinsically personal and private. I never expect to share them (and this is the first time I have, even in part.) This alone—a lowering of my rational guardrails, a baring of the soul in creativity—might explain why I love to reflect on this work. But the explanation could be even simpler than that.
I often find that once these flurries of nighttime scribbling are over, I'm able to go to sleep. So perhaps the insomnia itself is somewhat a result of an idea I needed to get off my chest. This seems to better explain the urgent nature of the writing, as that also happens at more decent hours when inspiration strikes harder than usual.
Whatever it is, at least it gives some value to being awake that late.
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