On staying up too late . . .

Why am I always staying up too late?

Why do I stay up too late, instead of going to bed? It should be a no-brainer. If I get better sleep tonight, then tomorrow I'll feel better, be more alert, tend to be more positive, have more energy, etc. Of course, it is a no-brainer to recognize that I should go to bed, but actually doing so is a different story.  

So I ask myself the question now, why am I not going to bed? I feel like there's still something missing from my day, like the day is not yet complete somehow.

But what's missing? And what would make the day complete? And even if I knew what was missing, why do I think I will find it if I stay up another hour or so? I never do.

Maybe this tendency to stay up too late started in childhood, when I felt like having a bedtime was some terrible hardship. As a kid, I thought that the world really came alive after my bedtime. If I ever did get to stay up late, I felt like everything I did was fun and exciting, even things that would be boring if I did them earlier in the day. I recall every now and then managing to avoid bed until Johnny Carson came on and did his monologue. Even though almost all the jokes were way over my five-year-old head, I did my best to act like I got the joke and found the whole experience as funny as the adults. So now, decades after becoming an adult and not having anyone tell me when to go to bed -- well, not counting the drill sergeants in basic training -- maybe I still resist the thought of going to bed because it somehow makes me feel more free and autonomous to stay up late. 

But I go back to the feeling of incompleteness about my day, and I think that's more likely the reason why I stay up too late. I remember enjoying some of my early experiences with alcohol, where I was able to just slide straight into mental oblivion and sleep, without having that intervening time of mental reflection on the events and experiences of the day. I have managed to fall asleep more quickly as I've gotten more into the habit of just focusing my mind on the present moment, by being aware of the sensation of lying in the bed and resting. Also, I've been able to fall asleep quickly by thinking about how I had wanted to rest, but been unable to, earlier in the day, and being aware that now that the day is done, I can rest. But those techniques work only after I've already gone to bed. When it comes to getting myself to go to bed in the first place, I need to form some better habits.

I have found that it is helpful to gradually dim lights as the night wears on and to avoid computer screens (although I'm in front of a screen now), as this is supposed to help with producing melatonin naturally. I also really benefit from having a few minutes of quiet meditation and reflection before I go to bed, since that seems to calm my mind and body. But I still find that I have to be extremely tired -- a lot more tired than I should need to be -- before I give up and go to bed.

So I think that what keeps me from going to bed is that I don't want to acknowledge that the day is actually done. Somehow, I want to find something that will help me feel blissfully content, so that I can end the day on that high (of feeling blissfully content). I know there are drugs that purport to do that, as well as alcohol, but the law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty quickly with those things; in the end, they make your sleep worse, not better. I need some kind of natural remedy: I need something that actually will make me feel content.

Meditation is the closest thing that I've found to a natural "high" that brings real contentment. Meditation has the added advantage of helping me to prepare for bed; when I get through meditating in a dark room late at night, I am pretty much always ready to go straight to bed. So maybe the solution to my problem of staying up too late is for me to start my meditation earlier. Early to meditate will hopefully mean early to bed, and hopefully being early to bed will, in turn, help me to be early to rise, healthy, wealthy, and wise (or whatever Benjamin Franklin said about going to bed early).

Welcome to "Finding Meaning in Life"

Finding Meaning in Life?

Welcome to "Finding Meaning in Life." This is a blog composed of essays (or "attempts," as per Montaigne) to wrestle with real-life questions, both big and small, ranging from deep, philosophical issues to seemingly small, everyday problems. It's all grist for the mill.

In this introductory post, I'd first like to say a little about myself and why I'm writing this blog, and then I'll briefly explain what this blog is and, perhaps more importantly, what it is not.

About Me and Why I'm Writing "Finding Meaning in Life"

In the tradition of twelve-step programs (or in the tradition of Kafkaesque characters like Joseph K), I'll just introduce myself as "Daniel D."

No, I'm not an alcoholic, although I have had a love-hate relationship with alcohol that has sometimes gotten out of hand. Nor am I addicted to taking drugs; however, if you consider dopamine a "drug" -- and there's good reason to think of dopamine as a drug that is every bit as addictive as cocaine or heroin -- then I suppose I am a recovering dopamine addict. (More on that in a future post.)

I would describe myself as a "seeker," but I haven't been as open-minded or down-to-earth as the term "seeker" implies (or at least as open-minded and down-to-earth as the self-described seekers that I've met). I would consider myself a recovering fundamentalist. I don't use that term to mean only religious fundamentalism, but also any sort of extreme black-or-white, all-or-nothing, it's-either-true-or-it's-false type of thinking. I am a seeker, but most of my search has been for certainty, something hard and fast to lay hold of and cling fast to. I've been desperate to find, not just answers, but the right answers. Of course, my search for certainty has not been very successful, though I've had seasons where I managed to silence my doubts and delude myself into believing that I've finally gotten all the bedrock answers I need; but -- to borrow a phrase from Kant -- something inevitably happens to rouse me from my dogmatic slumbers. And then the search continues.

As I get older (and hopefully wiser), I hope that I can learn to live contentedly in the midst of Life's uncertainties. Maybe the "cloud of unknowing" keeps me from figuring out all the grand, overarching answers in Life, but I'm learning to enjoy my limited view of the here-and-now. As Heraclitus said, you never step into the same river twice, since the current changes it moment-by-moment, and so it is with life. Even if I can't map out the entire river or know where its ultimately going to end, I can be fully alive and awake in the present moment. Or as Jesus said, "Don't worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will worry about itself. Sufficient for today are the troubles thereof." But attaining that state of contentment is very much a work in progress with me. Some days, I do okay, but many days, I get all caught up in the distractions around me and stressed out over nothing (literally). So today, I would describe myself as a "seeker," but I'm done seeking Truth with a capital "T," and I'm done with trying to discover some surefire method to become super "successful" in Life. At this point in my life, I'm really just searching for contentment.

Here's some general biographical details: I'm a white male, approaching middle age; I'm very introverted; I'm married, sometimes happily and sometimes not; I'm the father of three relatively young children, who bring me both great joy and great stress; I was raised in the suburbs in the American Southeast, and -- lo and behold! -- today I am raising my children in the suburbs of the American Southeast; I'm relatively educated, with a law degree and a BA in philosophy; I'm an army veteran; I'm presently skeptical about religious and spiritual matters, but I consider myself a Christian after the pattern of Montaigne's Apology for Raymond Sebond (more on that in future posts); even though my faith in God is very nuanced and tentative right now, I still (out of habit and also out of family loyalty) attend a fundamentalist Christian church (although I'm not sure how much longer that will last); I love reading and writing (but not arithmetic); I turn oxygen into carbon dioxide; yada, yada, yada. I don't know how much of that is relevant, but there it is. I suppose more details will follow in connection with future writings on various topics.

What "Finding Meaning in Life" is . . . and what it is not.

This blog is a medium for me to use to explore and work through the details of various questions and issues in my life. Although every person is unique, I think there are some fundamental similarities among the human tribe that allow the larger themes of my search for meaning to be relatable to you, and vice versa. So hopefully it will be helpful to me, as well as to anyone who happens to stumble upon it.

I like to think out loud, especially while walking, and I also like to use the writing process to organize and develop my thoughts. In life, there seem to be these recurring themes and questions that repeatedly challenge my attempts to answer them. But I keep trying to give an answer, to account for myself, as well as to decide what my life is all about. This blog will help me to do that.

This blog is NOT a scholarly or peer-reviewed article. I am a recovering perfectionist, so I will deliberately try to make this blog more stream-of-conscious and off-the-cuff, and less polished and edited (although my inner critic I roiling at the thought of that). What I write in this blog will be -- to borrow a phrase from Anne Lamott -- "shitty first drafts." If I cite a saying or insight that I've picked up somewhere (like that one), I'll try to give the source or at least tell you where you can find it, but don't expect anything like an MLA or Bluebook citation.

Some, maybe most, maybe ALL of the ideas I present here will not be fully worked out. I may contradict myself. But sometimes, when something seems at first to be a contradiction, it sometimes turns out to be a true paradox: two seemingly opposite truths which, nevertheless, mutually support each other. Or as G. K. Chesterton said, "a paradox is the truth standing on its head to get attention." So with that in mind, I will try to be brave and bold enough to pursue Reason and logic and evidence wherever they lead, even if it means contradicting what I previously said about it. Maybe the apparent contradiction will turn out to be one of those paradoxes, maybe not, but either way, I hope the process will allow me to grow.

So anyway, that's what "Finding Meaning in Life" is, or hopefully will be, all about: trying out different ideas and discovering myself in the process. Hopefully, something that I say will be helpful to you, as you test out the ideas for yourself and engage in some self-discovery.

If you're on your own journey of finding meaning in Life, you may enjoy other articles or  blog posts on this site, on subjects such as the benefits of mindfulness, whether the Bible is true, and how to define "success." If you are interested in philosophy, particularly epistemology, you may enjoy reading David Hume's essay On Miracles, which I have reprinted on this site; here is a link to an introduction on Hume's skeptical empiricism: https://www.finding-meaning-in-life.com/p/introducing-david-humes-skeptical.html.