While chatting with a MSN contact who claims to hail from India, I was briefly stumped and suddenly realized how tired I am when he gave me a jaded reply to one of my questions. We were playing a game similar to "20 Questions". I asked him that how would he spend today if the world were to end tomorrow, and he replied that he would spend it sleeping.
I was taken aback by his simplistic reply. To be honest, I was expecting some fanciful answer which involved an outrageous course of action which one usually wouldn't attempt in any normal circumstances.
Something like "Go on a shopping spree and empty out my life savings" or "I would break laws since I wouldn't be getting punishment anyway" or even, "Streak naked down Times Square/in the church/in front of my old-stick-in-the-mud teachers just for the heck of it".
But no.
He said he would spend it sleeping. If I was speaking to him face-to-face, I would probably be spluttering while gaping at him like some goldfish. Online, I practically demanded the reasoning behind his seemingly laid-back reply. I understand if a peer had given that reply [Given their immature nature not to answer the question seriously] but an adult? Curious and curiouser...
The guy was unpreturbed by my demand. He simply said that everyday we work day and night. So if there was no tomorrow, he might as well get a good rest. I supposed that made sense. But upon further probing, I discovered that there is a deeper meaning to that explanation. Think about it.
Why do we spend a good part of our lives slogging our guts out and even going through hell willingly during that?
For what reason do parents make so many sacrifices for their children and even make them undergo extreme pressure and sacrifice part of their present happiness as well?
What made rebel soldiers of the past and present fight tooth and nail, laying down their very lives and losing their rights as normal citizens to be on the run from the authorities?
Simply, they all want a better tomorrow.
People always do things for tomorrow.
You study to have a better future, you slog and bear indignities at work so you can enjoy the many tomorrows to come. You make great sacrifices just so your loved ones will have tomorrows.
But if there were no tomorrows, you would not have to face the bitterness of life, the fruits of misery and heartbreak which only Life can grow.
By then, will you finally enjoy a true relieve. Sadly, the only time in reality when there is no tomorrow is when you are on your deathbed. The day before you die is when there is no tomorrow for you. But then again, how would you enjoy that last, final day when you don't have to plan or have anything to do with tomorrow, when you are weakened by the pull of Death?
The only people with no tomorrow aren't the drug addicts which society has forsaken. They aren't the elderly who are simply cast aside into old age homes when their children find them too troublesome.
They are not the vagrants who wander the streets looking for scraps just to survive. They are not the juvenile delinquents whom your parents were always afraid you'll become.
The People With No Tomorrow are those at Death's Door. Citizenship of The People With No Tomorrow only lasts a day and everyone has to go through that state once.
Thus, we could only dream of a day with no tomorrow.
Through this, I realised that holidays aren't really considered resting. Just because we awake a few hours later doesn't mean anything. We sleep only to wake up the next day, expecting to wake up the next day. We sleep in dread or anticipation of the next day and it leaves us no relief, no true peace while in repose. So the only time where the peaceful "state of Nirvana" is achieved is when you are one of the People With No Tomorrow.
I sleep the best I can and for that few hours, live out the life I can never have. Dreamless sleep, although restful, wastes time spent in my fantasy life where I frolick with fictional characters and where I am invincible. Where I forget I am human and cross borders of dreams and nightmares.
Nevertheless, I prefer dreamless sleep as that is the time where I don't think, don't care and don't feel. Though dreaming leaves me sated and content, I always wake up heavy-hearted with a tinge of regret about leaving that euphoric life of where there is nothing I cannot cope with or overcome. For once, I'll like to sleep without the knowing that there'll be a next day.
It will probably leaves me much more alert, as though I have gone through rebirth and am starting a new beginning. Then I don't have to live with the shadows of Past's mistakes following my every step. I can be a new person and not bother about how others think of me. And I'll be able to think quickly with nothing clouding my mind. Which would have been useful tomorrow during the literature exam.
Now if you'll excuse, I'm going to sleep like there is no tomorrow.
