Everyone is afraid of the dark.
Maybe not in your room. Maybe not in your home.
But outside, with nothing but a clear sky to light the way, the darkness consumes. Every sound is accentuated, nature is alive in an audible array, and size becomes small.
It is a nocturnal realm, akin to swimming with sharks.
To the darkness we are all prey.
I’ve never been one for office hours.
And, while I’m not fully nocturnal, I do find the fleeting hours before sleep to be some of my most productive.
The ungodly hours hold sweat equity virtue. The phone is no longer a distraction. For a few hours, there isn’t any time zone that is active in a way that will bother me.
It is just the work. A task list that stands in the way of me and sleep.
I find those moments hard to come by. The liberating, nearly tangible moments when I don’t recall the hours of toil that went into creating any particular scene, it’s just about what fits and what doesn’t.
Or, what a character would say, and what they wouldn’t.
There is truth in the darkness.
Like wind through the tall grass.
Through the horrors of the owl calls, or the loon screams, or the crickets serenade… you can own the night, despite the fear.
That’s the only way things get done.
It’s a million to one shot.
One million reasons to not do something for every reason to persevere.
The stink of it is, if you’re looking for a reason to not do something, it takes a long time to count to a million.
A long time.
And at the end of it, even if you don’t lose track, do you still count it as an accomplishment?
Do what you set out to do.
A million is a long time to waste.