The Sin of Despair I

Sleeping is my all-time favorite activity. If I had to go without sleep for a week or go without music, food, water, clothes, and friends for a week, I would certainly go with the latter, as there is nothing quite as delicious, when there is too much going on, as being allowed (and biologically mandated!) to lay down, close your eyes, and wait for the world to get better. Too much going on includes, but is not limited to:

An essay due tomorrow

An Oil spill (of any kind)

A cat who follows you around like a phantom even though you fed him twenty minutes ago

Anything at all that involves not sleeping

There are times when a deinonychus could be leering at me while astride a Harley-Davidson motorized unicycle, and I would still buy a one-way ticket to the Blissful Land Behind my Eyelids, where my brain plays me the subconscious equivalent of Easy-Listening Muzak and only occasionally pesters me with visions of a Nazi-esque Nuclear Hell-scape.

But (and here’s where I commit what’s called The Sin of Despair)...

Sometimes sleep betrays you. If you sleep for too long or for not long enough during the day, you grow into a Post-Nap Funk. I was going to write about The Sin of Gluttony, today, and what are the 5 best things to over-do, but I am in a PNF, and I can’t imagine thinking of anything as Good right now. Here’s how it goes. You take a nap for, say, an hour.

You wake up thinking Golly, I sure am comfortable. Then you think, happily: I’ll open my eyes and take in the colors of my room. You open your eyes, vaguely expecting a fantasy land somewhat comparable to the one that you just woke up from.This is my room? This is an awful place. Why are there clothes everywhere?

Oh my God, you realize, suddenly, with a spasm of despair. The world is a thing!

And then you look like this for an hour.

So you just took a little mid-day siesta and find yourself enraged that the planet would dare to exist with you on it? What can be done?

Always isolate yourself when you find yourself in a Post-Nap Funk! Go watch TV! Do not talk to people, if someone comes up to you and attempts contact of any kind, run away as fast as you can, or you will accidentally say something awful to them. Only the sturdiest, most tensile friendships will last an encounter with PNF; others will crumble.

In fact, try not to do anything at all. I woke up from my nap today and attempted to prepare myself some cereal with raspberries (a lofty endeavor), and I was enraged to find that one of the raspberries had a touch of mold on it. Why I wondered to myself, through the apoplectic static of rage popping in my bristling ears, would any God wish this kind of horror on me?

I think that this is when Despair becomes a Sin. It is one thing to have to put up with yourself and your After-Nap insanity, but when you drag other people (and Gods) down with you, well, that’s just terrible. The Lord hates a pessimist.

The idea, I suppose, is that there’s always someone who is worse off than you, even when you are subject to the unbelievable torture of waking up from the exquisite blessing of sleep.