While We Are Sleeping
As people, we’re all so much more alike than we think. Yeah, we may all look different on the outside, but on the inside we all want and need the same things.
A couple years ago, I worked as a merchandiser for a big department store. My shift was always 6am-3pm, and I lived 30 minutes away from the mall so I usually gave myself an hour to get ready and commute. Minus barely being awake at 4:45am every morning, and knowing a deer could shoot out in front of my car at any moment, I always enjoyed the drive.
The drive would get even better when I’d finally get to the city and didn’t have to worry about deer (as much). Everything would always look so beautiful, too, especially after it had rained. I used to love seeing the reflections of the traffic lights illuminate the dampness of the black road. The roads were also completely empty at that time. Just me, my car, a little Stevie Wonder, and the road.
There’s a lot of time to think in that kind of quiet stillness. One of the things I found so interesting about that time of the morning was the idea that most people were asleep during that time. To think, so many different people, from all walks of life, are for once all doing the same thing; taking part in a typical human action called sleep.
Even if it’s only for a moment, some things in life (such as sleep) never change. We all need it. We all need food, water, and love to survive. Culture, religion, beliefs, and values — they’re all man-made add-ons that we as a species adopted and have latched on to get through life and to not feel alone on this big ole planet of ours.
But at the end of the day, we’re no different than the environment around us — there’s just some things we can’t live without. Most of us sit down to eat dinner at 5pm. If you get off from work late, you probably get home, eat a little something and go to sleep, wake up, rinse and repeat. Somewhere else across the ocean, or even across the street, someone else is doing the exact same thing. The sacredness of the home and family, and most of all, rest — that idea of oneness and solidarity is so beautiful to me. Even if it’s only for a few brief moments out of the day, we’re all doing the same kinds of things at some point or another, which makes us more alike than we try so hard not to be.
