Why Paladin Sleeps 2am to 2pm Every Day
"I've been trying to process. There's a lot of emotional stuff contributing to my sleeping pattern," Paladin wrote me. He was referring to his bad habit of staying up until two in the morning and sleeping in until two o'clock in the afternoon.
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"Feel free to share," I wrote back.
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"I'm not sure how to safely address it. It's pretty frustrating, but at least it makes sense. I'm trying to figure out how to explain it, but I'm not sure I can. It's hard to paint the whole picture," he replied.
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"All the more reason to just start speaking or writing without any idea what you're getting at. I usually find that it takes me three pages of typing to find the answers I'm seeking. That was my process before I met Oryx," I wrote.
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"There's projects that I want to work on, and that other people want me to work on. Yet when I let others influence when I work, I burning myself out," Paladin wrote. "This is part of the reason why carrots and sticks have proven themselves unreliable for me. I just end up perpetually unhappy, trying to meet other peoples' wants."
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Thinking of Paladin's mother I could easily see how that would be true. She never seemed to stop having another need to be fulfilled.
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"And I know deep down that if I let myself buy into that, then I will end up doing something I don't want to do, just to be unhappy, and that the reward - if it ever comes - won't make up for all of it," Paladin continued. "I think that the stuff I really want has so often been what I've given up in order to get the carrot - in order to avoid the stick. So, it's deeply programmed into me as a lost cause. The moment that the carrot or stick is first waved in front of me I've already failed. I can't, at that point, choose something that will make everyone happy. I spend all my time on things that will please other people, even if I want them, so that I'm not seen as spending time on other things instead. So that I'm not seen as irresponsible, and so that others don't intrude and violate my space, my projects."
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"And since your unconscious doesn't believe I have your best interests at heart, my carrots are just as suspect as your mom's or society's carrots," I wrote. "What if you could make a pact with yourself about spending X amount of time on X projects of your own each day, no matter what?
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"That's kind of what I need to do," he wrote.
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I nodded.
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"I need to get the balls up to say, 'Look, so-and-so, if I have to finish that in six feet of snow, that's my f-ing problem, so hands off and let me get to it when I'm ready.' It's not ideal," Paladin wrote. "But, the fact is, I'm not going to let myself do this any faster than I would if I was doing all the stuff I wanted. Fact is, I'm probably getting the few projects that I'm focused on done more slowly, at the current rate. Because I'm draining myself, burning myself out, just to focus my energies on one thing.
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"And I sleep so much to avoid the work that is draining me so much and I sleep when I do to avoid the people that are 'making' me do it. There's other stuff going into the sleep thing, but that's a piece of it, at least.
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"All this obligation to others and trying to protect my space/projects from other people . . . If I'm protecting myself, then I perceive those that I must protect myself from as threatening- as foes. There's this very mixed sense of hostility about the other people in this house, because my projects and space are part of my process - part of me - and I'm so very afraid of it being . . . not honored, not respected . . . violated even.
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"All the baggage at the root of this is really bloody intense, because it's exhausting to feel, to process. I need to make a middle ground where I commit to making progress on the projects that I've been focusing on and spend time each day engaging in finding my inspiration and acting on it, because that's what fuels me.
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"Anyway, thank you."
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"You're very welcome. Thank you for sharing," I wrote. He'd written most of that while I was talking to Hibiscus's father. Hibiscus's parents had arrived earlier that day. Earlier I'd told Paladin, "Things are well thus far. I can see how his mother is much like yours. But his father seems like a cross between your father and my mother in the best of ways thus far."
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After reading and responding to Paladin's texts I added: "I just started getting a sore throat and itchy eyes. I spent some time asking myself why I needed to very suddenly become sick. The answer was obvious: because I was obligating myself to entertain Hibiscus's parents. I've removed that obligation from myself."
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Paladin replied, "Obligation is bad juju. Glad you're taking care of yourself. I'm going to nap for a bit. Maybe now that I've recognized some of this stuff, I'll be able to get some restorative sleep."