My brain pulsates. I feel a needle churning behind my eyes. My breath is shallow. The lights spin a little, settle, I find my footing and head towards the door. I’ve lost count of how many cups of coffee I’ve had this evening, but my heart is still beating, so I’m going to get my next. It is to be the fuel that powers me to an early grave.
It’s that time of night when my city of 23 million goes dead except for the occasional car whooshing by, and a distant cough breaking the still air. One of the flats is still awake in building across the road, its hazy lights soaked through the curtains, peering at me like ghostly eyes.
It’s the third night I’ve stayed up until 3am. I am a busy man, you see. I run a team with 17 people, advise two start-ups, volunteer, tutor, and I just offered to help a team draft their pitch deck. The last four things I do for free, the only reward being that exhilarating feeling that I am needed. I matter.
Sleep? I have no time for sleep.
I am a workaholic.
I am 29. I am estranged from my family. I have no close friends. I have never been in a long-term relationship. Every single person I have talked to in the past month is a work acquaintance.
I take pride in being productive. People come to me to get things done. Honestly though, I am no more productive than anyone else. I simply throw more time at a problem than everyone else.
But work brings me no pleasure. Nor has my busyness paid off in grand accomplishments or wealth. I work, lest that abysmal feeling of emptiness catches up and drags me under. I must produce value with every breath, or else why breath at all?
When life offers a possibility for love, for friendship, for meaning beyond a 13-inch screen, I feel only terror.
So I seek distraction through crushing anxiety. I deaden my senses through exhaustion. Busyness is the armour protecting me from the barrenness of life. Without it I am exposed, naked, defenseless. Without work, I have nothing else to show to the world.
I am tired, but I can’t stop. I must achieve something, so that I may be worthy of my suffering.
#00117F 