(no subject)
3/8/03 12:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
minervasoloIt's almost 1 am. Usually, I'm in bed by ten, just because I get bored. Recently, that's not beeen happening, even though I'm always deathly bored anyway. Tonight, I had a sudden darkfic craving, and went into melodramatic 'essay' mode. Livejouanl does that to me - ever since I got this I've been writing really random nothings, which are generally just very pretentious. Like the following, really.
Sleep Grows Dull
Sleep grows dull. For a while it has its fascination, but that fades with time, as do all things. I could sleep, if I wished, lie down and close my eyes and wait stoically, but always with the nagging doubt that there’s something I’d rather be doing. Why waste time, empty headed and open-eyed, waiting for the dark, when it could be filled?
Night comes slowly, creeping its way across the landscape in languid dusk, electric cities keeping it at bay until morning comes. When it’s one AM and the sky is neon orange, night has grown defunct. The dark has given up on us, leaving us exposed to the clear grey light. The light that breeds shadows.
Shadows have no substance of their own, yet they define other substances. As night loses its eternal grip, drowning in neon and night shifts and gaudy television shows, the shadows grow more prominent. Every circle of streetlamp leaves a line between the light and the shadow, every torch and sign and window makes the shadows. The dark has no shadows, but we reject the peace it offers instead.
A century ago, we had no choice but to accept the dark. The fireplace created its own flickering shadows, and the rain splattered windows were hole into a fathomless retreat. You stayed home, you went to bed. Only those touched by the dark could bear it, wandering through the streets. There were fewer shadows to fear, but humanity has always had its priorities mixed there. Few children are scared of the dark; most are scared of the shadows. The dark is all-embracing, like a mother, and only a fear of being lost to it makes us reach for the candle and accept the shadows as a poor substitute. We don’t want to be embraced, we want to retain our individuality, even if it means fear and pain and fighting the dark with bulbs and tubes.
You were afraid of the dark, so you slept your way through it. But in this light and shadow world, there is no dark, and no need to sleep. As the sharp austerity plays upon your eyelids, how can you imagine letting go of it? How can you sleep, when the world is bathed in faux daylight? It is easier to let go of everything when you have nothing to hold on to, when all has been taken from you, but as we ignite our world with tamed fire we have too much to cling to. The darkness came each night to give us no reason to stay awake. The lights are switched on each night to give us something to clutch as the shadows grow ever nearer.
Sleep grows dull, and I switch on the lights to find a reason to stay awake.
Sleep Grows Dull
Sleep grows dull. For a while it has its fascination, but that fades with time, as do all things. I could sleep, if I wished, lie down and close my eyes and wait stoically, but always with the nagging doubt that there’s something I’d rather be doing. Why waste time, empty headed and open-eyed, waiting for the dark, when it could be filled?
Night comes slowly, creeping its way across the landscape in languid dusk, electric cities keeping it at bay until morning comes. When it’s one AM and the sky is neon orange, night has grown defunct. The dark has given up on us, leaving us exposed to the clear grey light. The light that breeds shadows.
Shadows have no substance of their own, yet they define other substances. As night loses its eternal grip, drowning in neon and night shifts and gaudy television shows, the shadows grow more prominent. Every circle of streetlamp leaves a line between the light and the shadow, every torch and sign and window makes the shadows. The dark has no shadows, but we reject the peace it offers instead.
A century ago, we had no choice but to accept the dark. The fireplace created its own flickering shadows, and the rain splattered windows were hole into a fathomless retreat. You stayed home, you went to bed. Only those touched by the dark could bear it, wandering through the streets. There were fewer shadows to fear, but humanity has always had its priorities mixed there. Few children are scared of the dark; most are scared of the shadows. The dark is all-embracing, like a mother, and only a fear of being lost to it makes us reach for the candle and accept the shadows as a poor substitute. We don’t want to be embraced, we want to retain our individuality, even if it means fear and pain and fighting the dark with bulbs and tubes.
You were afraid of the dark, so you slept your way through it. But in this light and shadow world, there is no dark, and no need to sleep. As the sharp austerity plays upon your eyelids, how can you imagine letting go of it? How can you sleep, when the world is bathed in faux daylight? It is easier to let go of everything when you have nothing to hold on to, when all has been taken from you, but as we ignite our world with tamed fire we have too much to cling to. The darkness came each night to give us no reason to stay awake. The lights are switched on each night to give us something to clutch as the shadows grow ever nearer.
Sleep grows dull, and I switch on the lights to find a reason to stay awake.
