Candidly Speaking - 15/04/22

On Sleeplessness

“And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy.

And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.

Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them: Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.” (Matthew 27:43 - 45, KJV)

I have always wondered why we call the day of most infamous public execution in human history “Good Friday”. Around this time, we find Jewish people observing Passover (“Celebrate is a goyish word. Observe is a Jewish word” - Lenny Bruce), recalling the genuine good news of their Exodus from Egypt and slavery. And in the Vietnamese language, the word for Gospel is “Tin Mừng”, which roughly translates to “Good News”. So the Good News include the birth, death, as well as the resurrection of Christ. And of course, for the resurrection to happen, He had to die first. I find this explanation rather helpful:

In order for the good news of the gospel to have meaning for us, we first have to understand the bad news of our condition as sinful people under condemnation. The good news of deliverance only makes sense once we see how we are enslaved. Another way of saying this is that it is important to understand and distinguish between law and gospel in Scripture. We need the law first to show us how hopeless our condition is; then the gospel of Jesus’ grace comes and brings us relief and salvation.

In the same way, Good Friday is “good” because as terrible as that day was, it had to happen for us to receive the joy of Easter.

Christ was sleepless on the day of his capture: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” (Mt. 27:38) He even chastises his disciples for falling asleep: “What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mt. 27: 40 - 41)

I think about his restlessness often, as I myself go through my struggle in the Kingdom of Sleep. Actually, I think many thoughts that keep me up at night, most of them anxiety-inducing. Too often, I find myself watching videos on my phone long after my intended bedtime - it is another bad habit of which I am looking to rid myself. I do not consider myself an insomniac, but I notice that my overall quality of sleep has decreased ever since I entered high school, and probably suffered worse in my college years. Of course, this is mainly due to my addiction to the screen. The first thing in the morning, I reach for my iPhone to browse the Internet. The last thing I do at night is to immerse myself in a constant stream of images and sounds, emanating from the same device. I work on the computer most of the time, which involves more screen-staring. And one of my hobbies involves browsing for films and shows on Netflix and iTunes - staring at the screen again. One of the things I am doing is replacing the night-time phone use with reading books, something I seldom did recreationally when pursuing my English degree. I am a bigger reader now than I have ever been, but I have failed to appreciate reading books on paper - it is either Kindle eBooks or Audible narrations. As I an writing this, I think about the article written by Andrew Sullivan not so long ago, about the same things I currently have to deal with:

If the internet killed you, I used to joke, then I would be the first to find out. Years later, the joke was running thin. In the last year of my blogging life, my health began to give out. Four bronchial infections in 12 months had become progressively harder to kick. Vacations, such as they were, had become mere opportunities for sleep. My dreams were filled with the snippets of code I used each day to update the site. My friendships had atrophied as my time away from the web dwindled. My doctor, dispensing one more course of antibiotics, finally laid it on the line: “Did you really survive HIV to die of the web?”

The article’s name is “I Used to Be a Human Being” - how fitting. I used to spend high school being ostracized and bullied by boys who play online video games until the end of the night. The memories of those years still haunt me whenever I am left alone in bed. I used to see a lot of my high school peers wearing glasses - a sign of impaired vision - and promised myself that I would never have to require such things. Sometimes, when I waste away my precious hours staring at my phone, I think of that scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex’s eyes are jammed open, as he is forced to see violent imagery projected on film. That’s what addiction does to you, I think: it makes you sick, but you cannot stop.

I write this blog entry in a state of sleeplessness, as you may have guessed. I have been experiencing a feeling of burnout and overload in the past couple of weeks, much like what inspired Andrew Sullivan to give up daily blogging. As I commit my thoughts into words, I look at my cat, who’s sleeping on my bed. Her name is Sushi, and she spends much of every day sleeping peacefully. One of the joys of coming back to Hanoi is to see and hang out with Sushi again. She’s been with the family for seven years, and she likes my company as much as I like hers. I do sometimes envy the cat’s ability to sleep peacefully, without anxieties or encumbrances. Nevertheless, I am a human being, with my own abilities and limits.

I read in his book that Dave Rubin, a political commentator and host of the popular Internet show The Rubin Report, maintains a habit of retreating from technology and social media for a month every year. As of right now, I am not certain that I am ready for such a commitment. But I do have the weekend to recuperate my human autonomy. I find it funny how, as a kid, I used to look forward to the weekend to stay up past my bedtime. Nowadays, I violate my sleep schedule almost every day, and I use the weekend as an opportunity to get more sleep. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, indeed.

I wish you all a Happy Easter weekend!

Note: I intended for this entry to be about the overwhelming cost of genius, as I collect my thoughts on watching the Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit”. Thankfully, I recovered my senses right before writing what became the lines you are reading now.