The Dead Zone
I set two alarms for morning, because I committed to a 5am start to the day, over coffee with a good friend. I set two alarms, knowing that one has failed me more times than I’d like to admit over the last fortnight, when the sloppiness of holidays takes a toll on more aspects of life and living than I’d ever plan, naturally. In marriage, there is some good sense and a wonderful solidarity that comes from a few peaceful mornings spent in bed - keeping in mind that the sleep in I’m describing tends to last til seven, perhaps seven thirty am, on a rare morning in which caution is thrown to the wind, and the wider world hasn’t scheduled us in until later in the day. But the exception, of course, tries its hardest to become the rule, and I’d failed to prioritise my morning routine for far too long, with implications that spread well beyond the initial hours of the day.
Bolstered by a cumulative series of later nights, later mornings and the sorts of mediums that I usually set aside by 9pm, I was hitting the Dead Zone - hours of the day in which discipline had waned, but the body was yet to crave sleep. These are evening hours that are lost to the sorts of monotonous, inane browsing, scrolling, clicking and ruinous rabbit holes that do little to enrich the soul, or the intellect. Often, in these rambling, wandering, circuitous journeys, one finds something of value; but I find myself unable to capably enjoy, understand and appreciate what I’ve found, due the taxed faculties of the day that preceded it. So whilst I’m unable (or unwilling) to sleep, I’m similarly unable to appreciate truth, beauty and goodness, even when I find it.
Another key determinant of the Dead Zone is the increased need for novelty, for stimulation, for entertainment, when the natural pleasures of art, literature and spiritual reading fail to suffice. You need a little more, something a little different, beyond the printed word and ideas and artists you know and love, reaching out for that evasive, ethereal, awful ‘something else’ that our digital mediums tend to promise us - setting aside the simple truth that our dissatisfaction, our appetite, is driven more by our own fallen nature than the inadequacy of what lies before us, in a good book, a beautiful nocturne, the wonders of scripture or revelling in crafting our own word and song. There is a marked ennui, that infects us with an appetite that can be for both intellectual and material pleasures, without the good sense, taste and discernment that comes with the clarity of daytime hours.
Furthermore, I dropped my guard and turned back the clock on my internet blocker, needing more hours in the day to tend to the tasks in preparation for moving house - a valid reason no doubt, but followed of course by the banality, distraction and fruitless fumbling and false allures of digital marketplaces and mediums. Usually, by 9pm, my devices can access nothing beyond the realm of the works, texts and realities of their own resources. I can use then to write, and for some reading, but the black hole of ‘everything else,’ or more precisely that poisonous yearning for a ‘something else,’ that can never be defined, and as such, never truly discovered, was never a discernible threat. Hence I turned my back on systems and strategies that I know protected me, and thus it’s little surprise that I ended up in the Dead Zone.
There were a few nights, I was spared by the lovely labour of digging out holes for the twenty three Chinese elms on our new property, probably the first of an endless series of works to come in the years ahead, thanks be to God. The wondrous fatigue that the work produced drew me to bed earlier than usual, utterly overwhelming the desire to fritter away time in the evenings and to my delight, granting enough early sleep to make an early start both easy and practically inevitable. The simple satisfaction of an early slumber, good night’s sleep (relatively rare in the past six years, I must admit), and an effortless start to the habits and labours of a new day, was utterly delightful - and should not be the exception, but the rule.
The other morning, after a couple of weeks of late starts, an early shift at Eucharistic adoration drew me out of bed and into the presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Kneeling in His presence, praying the morning prayer from the breviary, the sun yet to rise and the city of Albury stilled around us, I had a taste of that peace I’d been neglecting for a few more minutes in bed. The psalmist tells us: truly, I have set my soul in silence and solitude. As a husband and father, I need to be honest with myself about when and where I can find that silence and solitude. The evenings, late nights alone, stripped of discipline and resolve, are not the makings of a life well lived. But the energy, innocence, wonder and stillness of a winter’s morning is another world entirely. A world in which our patience, our resolution and clarity of mind and heart can draw us ever closer to the pursuit of truth, beauty and goodness that our disciplines should celebrate and inspire.
So flee the Dead Zone, when you feel it’s dull fatigue, taste it’s ennui, and know that the indulgences of the evening to run counter to your better judgement. Tend swiftly and decisively towards the rest and recovery that will grant you what the day demands, to better serve God and your neighbour, in every good work, ever discipline, every disposition that you know to be true to your better nature.