I no longer know if I ever fall asleep. If I do, I remain outside of sleep itself, in that constantly moving ring of icy asteroids that circles the dark and immobile hollow of oblivion. It is as if I never enter that shadowy vacuum. I toss and turn, literally, in the zone around it, which is as vast as a world, and actually is the world. I do not lose consciousness. I remain with myself. Thought accompanies me. I don’t know if this thought is different from that of full wakefulness; it is, at any rate, very similar.
This is how I spend my nights. To entertain myself, I remember conversations I’ve had with friends during the day: each night, those of the same day. Every day these conversations give me material for memory. Since I stopped working, I’ve had nothing better to do than get together with my friends and converse for entire afternoons. I’ve often wondered if my lack of employment is the reason for my sleep disturbance, because before, when I used to work, I slept normally, like everybody else.
It’s quite possible. Deep, restful sleep has always been considered the reward for a productive day. But what choice do I have? I stopped working when my earnings could guarantee me a decent livelihood. Now I have more than enough money to cover my modest necessities, and I have no desire to invent work for myself only to keep busy, as others do. Th at recourse carries life into the terrain of the unreal, and I am a man of realities. Moreover, work accomplished without any genuine need would fail to fulfill the requirement of tiring me out and allowing me to sleep. Th e situation would be more readily comprehensible if I were an old man who had given up all activities because of the natural burden of old age, with its ailments and frailties. When I retired early, I found myself at a halfway point; just like with sleep, I cannot ultimately decide whether I am inside or out.
In any case, I am not complaining. Perhaps I really do sleep. The following morning, it is difficult to make that determination. In any case, through the reconstruction of my daily conversations, I have discovered a nocturnal vein of mental activity that is intensely gratifying. At my age, fears of mental decline set in, so it helps to put oneself to the test, to exercise. And this exercise has reassured me that my memory and my ability to focus are still intact, as is my reason.
I am fortunate: throughout my life, I’ve formed a first-rate circle of friends. Though I myself am not, properly speaking, an intellectual, I’ve always been interested in and felt affinities for all things cultural; these affinities have translated themselves into close relationships with distinguished personages in the arts, the humanities, and the sciences. They, in turn, have apparently found my company not disagreeable, for the friendships that we’ve built over time remain strong, and we meet frequently — especially now that I am always available.
The level of our conversations is consistently high. There is no place for gossip, soccer, health issues, or food; our exchanges glide along the lines of history and philosophy. Hence, my nocturnal recollections are rich in sustenance that I can sink my teeth into. The topics we discuss lift them above mere mechanical memory and onto the level of reflection and learning.
In bed, I always focus on the conversations of that same day, though I could also turn my attention to those from years or even decades before. It might sound presumptuous to use the grandiloquent word “memory” for something that occurred no more than a few hours before. But that’s fine by me. It is often said that with age, our memory moves further away from the present and that old people are better able to remember what happened in childhood than the day before. I prefer to exercise my memory on what is immediate, closest at hand.
And, truly, my memory is a prodigious apparatus, one that amazes me night after night with its precision and
This is how I spend my nights. To entertain myself, I remember conversations I’ve had with friends during the day: each night, those of the same day. Every day these conversations give me material for memory. Since I stopped working, I’ve had nothing better to do than get together with my friends and converse for entire afternoons. I’ve often wondered if my lack of employment is the reason for my sleep disturbance, because before, when I used to work, I slept normally, like everybody else.
It’s quite possible. Deep, restful sleep has always been considered the reward for a productive day. But what choice do I have? I stopped working when my earnings could guarantee me a decent livelihood. Now I have more than enough money to cover my modest necessities, and I have no desire to invent work for myself only to keep busy, as others do. Th at recourse carries life into the terrain of the unreal, and I am a man of realities. Moreover, work accomplished without any genuine need would fail to fulfill the requirement of tiring me out and allowing me to sleep. Th e situation would be more readily comprehensible if I were an old man who had given up all activities because of the natural burden of old age, with its ailments and frailties. When I retired early, I found myself at a halfway point; just like with sleep, I cannot ultimately decide whether I am inside or out.
In any case, I am not complaining. Perhaps I really do sleep. The following morning, it is difficult to make that determination. In any case, through the reconstruction of my daily conversations, I have discovered a nocturnal vein of mental activity that is intensely gratifying. At my age, fears of mental decline set in, so it helps to put oneself to the test, to exercise. And this exercise has reassured me that my memory and my ability to focus are still intact, as is my reason.
I am fortunate: throughout my life, I’ve formed a first-rate circle of friends. Though I myself am not, properly speaking, an intellectual, I’ve always been interested in and felt affinities for all things cultural; these affinities have translated themselves into close relationships with distinguished personages in the arts, the humanities, and the sciences. They, in turn, have apparently found my company not disagreeable, for the friendships that we’ve built over time remain strong, and we meet frequently — especially now that I am always available.
The level of our conversations is consistently high. There is no place for gossip, soccer, health issues, or food; our exchanges glide along the lines of history and philosophy. Hence, my nocturnal recollections are rich in sustenance that I can sink my teeth into. The topics we discuss lift them above mere mechanical memory and onto the level of reflection and learning.
In bed, I always focus on the conversations of that same day, though I could also turn my attention to those from years or even decades before. It might sound presumptuous to use the grandiloquent word “memory” for something that occurred no more than a few hours before. But that’s fine by me. It is often said that with age, our memory moves further away from the present and that old people are better able to remember what happened in childhood than the day before. I prefer to exercise my memory on what is immediate, closest at hand.
And, truly, my memory is a prodigious apparatus, one that amazes me night after night with its precision and
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