Crickety Crakket

And then, Burt (the main character) went into the kitchen and made himself some toast. He ate the toast. Standing up. In front of the toaster. He was sleepy. He was always sleepy in the morning. 

Sometimes he'd wake up at around 5 in the morning and be completely awake. But, he didn't have to wake up until 6. So, he'd just lie there and feel like it'd be the easiest thing in the world to wake up and do all the stuff he had to do.

But he always went back to sleep. When his alarm went off at 6 he was incredibly tired and had to force himself out of bed. What kind of cruel trick is that?

Why did it have to be so hard to get out of bed? Should it be hard to get out of bed?

It should! It should be hard to get out of bed! This was his daily toll. His Sisyphean task. To roll his lumped mass out of bed only to have it come crashing down about 14 hours later. 

That was the moment where he chose to be a person for another day. No small choice. If the difficult of physically removing himself from the bed was indicative of the difficulty of the choice. There are so many things Burt is going to mess up. And so many things he's going to ruin forever. And yet he's going to matter so little.

It's like choosing to be a grain of sand in an hourglass. He is part of the process of covering up and obscuring everything that fell before him. And at the same time he is being covered and obscured. 

Plus it's just plain hard to get up! He's low blood-sugar. His brain is booting up. Physically it's hard.

Maybe, the difficulty of getting up makes the act worthwhile in itself. It gets down to something basic. That early in the day, there isn't enough time to think about and imagine the constructive things that can be worked on. There isn't enough time to rationalize or motivate. Even hunger or needing to go to the bathroom doesn't really jump-start the day.

There needs to be some kind of basic urge to just be present. If it wasn't hard to get up then that urge wouldn't mean as much. And if that's one thing that everybody has to endure then that's one reason to respect everyone that started their day.

Hey, it's hard getting up. You did that. That was difficult. Everything else you're bothering yourself with might be stupid and pointless and destructive or amazing or fantastic and it's probably different than the stuff I'm bothering myself with. But we did it. Here it is.

Hoo-rah.