Too early to sleep, too late to wake up.

Only  heaven knows  why I’m awake at 2:19 in the morning, what’s worse I’m watching television. I guess when you have insomnia and time, you can’t really find something else to do. The ads for body workouts and singles dating networks are almost as painful as the terrible sitcoms playing reruns of shows that never made it past the first season. As I begin to focus on my typing, the tv turns off, and the sounds of the early morning begin to hum. This is when I notice. It doesn’t happen always, but once every now and again, when I have time to think about it, I get this strange pit in my stomach, and an aching to have someone next to me. I guess this would explain the dating services and workout programs. People will do anything to not be alone. I heard a recent study that a person without social interaction, being left alone, will suffer the same death ratio as someone that smokes 15 cigarettes a day. This is a statistic I not only find disturbing, but also somewhat painful.  A life alone is death waiting to happen. I suppose that between all the rushing and fast paced living we have, even the independent must find themselves with someone. Sometimes when I look up at the ceiling and stare off into a cosmic void of tope paint and shadow corners, I wonder what it would be like to have someone. I can’t imagine what it must be like, never wondering who you’re going to be with tomorrow, who you’re going to share your next meal with, your next night with, your next kiss with. You know because you chose them and they chose you. Maybe it was luck of the draw, maybe it was fate, or maybe it was darwin’s survival of the fittest, but be that as it may, you are no longer alone. Millions of worries that every average human being faces have all suddenly disappeared with that single assuring truth. What would we really be willing to do to prohibit this feeling of empty seclusion? I suppose we all have our talents keeping us from being alone. Some are blessed with good looks, others with a shining personality, and the blessed few with both, but yet there are other things that can keep us from being alone. Some people are good actors. They can be what they want to be, convince people of what they want interpreted, and manipulate others into believing whatever their selfish desires may demand. I was a good performer. I could be anything, I could play a part like it was second nature to me. I was never alone, and I always had company to keep me from realizing what I truly was. But there comes a time when you grow old. I, of course, am by no stretch of the imagination old, but I am experiencing a sort of “tired maturity.” I no longer enjoy playing games, I don’t want to have to trick people, and I’m tired of acting to get what I want. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that I appreciate something real. I don’t understand our current predicament of strutting our feathers like an underappreciated peacock, pleading for an attentive eye, doing whatever we may to get that one minute of spotlight. Perhaps when you’ve seen so much in your life you can’t help but believe that there has to be a way that doesn’t drain ones faculties so much. Isn’t there a way to be honest with our fellow humans? A way to say what we feel and have the freedom to not retreat from an inner inclination but to do what we feel is right for us personally? Maybe I dream too much, maybe there is a strange egotism clouding our idea of doing what we want. We may at times disregard what we want simply because we want it. I doubt there is anyone on this earth that would not give up everything to be with the one they could love for eons into eternity, but in doing so, ironies paradoxical hand holds us as we realize that the more we give up, the further we become from what we want. I speak nothing of material good, to hades with those, I say. When I refer to giving up everything I speak of who we are in our very fabric. Our whimsical laugh, our half cocked smile, and our sense of humor that we feel others would never understand, and yet, amongst all the people we know, shouldn’t we still be looking for that “someone”? Surely when fate had created this whole scheme we call life, there was a failsafe to help us along the way, showing us who and what is important. Why then would we ruin that failsafe by changing our fundamental structure? We are not meant to be alone. We will not be alone if we truly don’t want to be. It is in our every pigment, cell, and atom, that we are not to be alone. Yet how often do we communicate what we want? Only the bold find themselves being outspoken and voicing what they want in such a brash manner. The silent envy them, staring on from the corners speaking “if onlys” under their breath, not realizing that standing next to them is someone with hopes, dreams, ambitions, and desire. Often times the lovely dames of our generation feel such a strong obligation to be pretty that they lose themselves believing that no one could love them for who they are, and yet the young lads are looking for someone that believes in themselves. The young men pine for a woman that doesn’t seem immediate and yet all the women are searching for that one man that will take charge of his fate and make his own path. If only we as a species could relearn how to communicate. It was what made us different from the animals, our ability to let others know how we felt. Now we devolve into a hollow shell of what was once the greatest creation to walk the earth. Perhaps this is why I still write, the ability to say that at least I tried to help others understand that there is so much more beyond their own thought process, while on the other hand, helping the few realize that they are simply few, but not extinct. We have potential to open channels, the ability to create a link between humans. Don’t waste a thought thinking that someone’s life is easier than your own, because we all face difficulties. The ones that seem happy are simply strong, determined, and experienced in hardship. If only you would pay attention, you could see how hard it is for those people to live how they do. I’ve seen it in the eyes of so many a young people, burdens of the world weighing down on their shoulders as they convince themselves that this is “fair.” They have long ago taken the good with the bad, realizing that perfection is an illusion for philosophy, and that with all things is there a yin and yang. Yet asking is the first step to receiving an answer. Don’t ever be afraid to ask. Liars will lie, but truth tellers will break the chains of malice. An early morning philosophy in a tea cup.