The hardest part of my day is the night. Sleep does not come easy — has never come easy. I regularly wake at 2:00 am, and stay awake for two or three hours. I use this time to fret about the state of the Earth (precarious), the state of the nation (doomed), and whether that new black spot on my left ankle will lead to agonizing death, or perhaps (best case scenario) merely to amputation at the hip. I then sleep fitfully until dawn, the last hours of the night crowded with grotesque, humiliating nightmares, worse by a long shot than anything Gregor Samsa could possibly imagine.
Last night, up again, I experienced a moment of clarity — a revelation, an epiphany. Here it comes:
My mattress is just the right degree of firmness — I sleep neither on the hard earth nor on a gunny sack of corn husks. My blankets are soft Egyptian cotton — not leaves or newspapers. I rest my head on an authentic goose-down pillow. There are no rats scrabbling under my bed, no poisonous spiders descending from the ceiling, no lions roaring outside the door. No bedbugs or parasites or mosquitoes or scorpions. I'm dry and warm. The temperature of my bedroom is well-regulated: forced air heat in the winter, cooling breezes or air conditioning in the summer. I'm well fed, not kept awake by gnawing hunger. No noxious smells or hideous shrieks. No pains, cramps, headaches, or wounds.
I know that my situation is luxurious and is certainly superior to all of my ancestors and to 99% of the human beings on the planet,
I am thankful that I have nothing whatever to grumble at, but I feel that I'm unappreciative. To lie awake as I do, not sleeping, is to scorn society's gifts. How my forebears would have reveled in my taken-for-granted comforts!
No question but that I should be much more grateful.
"Lack of gratitude" will be the principal worry during tonight's insomnia.
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