I understand sleeping with the TV on

• May 25, 2007

I understand sleeping with the TV on

Some sleep with the TV on every night.
Once in a while may not mean anything, but every night, that is unmistakable.

Others are more subtle

Insomnia.  Some part keeps saying 'what are you doing trying to sleep when you could be using this time to go look for it?'

Drinking; a lot. Exceptions include alcoholics and college  students.
Most other drugs too, same thing.

Excess exercise.  You can tell them from the truly health conscious because they will work out even when sick, injured, or sore from last time, when exercise is not healthy, and probably counter-productive. They know that it is, but feel compelled none the less.

Overtime which is not really needed financially.

Volunteering so much that it displaces all or most personal life.  Hard to distinguish between those who really care, because surely that's a factor for everyone, and there are no concrete lines to draw.

Singular obsessions of nearly any kind.  This I don't know so much about, I could not tell which instances were this, and which were simply neurosis

It may involve constant (but primarily or exclusively superficial) social interactions, or it may be a complete withdrawal from social life.

Just, one way or another, filling all of ones time, never allowing for down time, for rest.  It doesn't make any difference what that time is filled with, if it feels imperative that it be something, every moment.
Every type 'A' personality is unsatisfied.  There is something they need to get, something they need to achieve or to find or to prove which they know they will never be able to.

Its all the same.  We know we are missing something.  We don't want to admit it to ourselves.  We don't want to think about it.
Some are in such deep denial that they don't even know there is anything to look for, have no idea that their activities are a coping mechanism.  They rationalize it, "this is just what I enjoy doing".  They really don't know.

I know exactly what I am missing. 
Sometimes I envy the ones who don't, but in the end, I don't really think it makes them happier.  It just means they end up throwing away the chance when it comes by, because they'd rather keep up the illusion than risk having to feel.  They'd rather go without than risking finding it and losing it again.

But is a guaranty of acceptable really worth a chance at excellent?

This may be most of us.  What it is we are each missing in our lives, they may be totally different for each of us, they may have nothing in common.  It doesn't matter.  The feeling is the same.  The actions we take to deal with it when we have no control are all the same.

Sleeping with the TV on can mean many things, but it always means that there is something which you are afraid to let yourself think about.  There is something which is hard to repress without distraction.

Me, I can't sleep with the TV on.  When I first noticed this habit in others, I recognized it for what it was, but I really didn't sympathize. 
I wonder if I could learn to sleep with it on. 

After all, I have such a nice flat panel TV in the bedroom...