Bradbury’s take on why you should stay drunk on writing.

If I’ve trouble sleeping, I didn’t pour all I could into writing that day.

Or so I believe.

Throughout the day, the body grows tired, longing to softly drift away into peaceful sleep.

As for the mind, it remains active, racing through every single thought you’ve had that day and creating new ones.

I think that rather than releasing all that pent-up energy into a craft, hobby or profession, it’s kept in, finding its only release in the last thing that remains on.

To quite this noise, Bradbury suggests:

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. For writing allows just the proper recipe of truth, life reality as you are able to eat, drink, and digest without hyperventilating and flopping like a dead fish in your bed.”

The reality that he’s referring to can be interpreted in a general sense, though we all have our own micro-realities that stem from our own judgements and purposes.

Which then those realities are patiently waiting for you the second your head hits the pillow.

Proof that this is so, Bradbury continues:

“If I let a day go by without writing, I grow uneasy. Two days and I am in tremor. Three and I suspect lunacy. Four and I might as well be a hog, suffering the flux in a wallow.”

The body doesn’t necessarily grow uneasy, tremor and suspect lunacy.

But the mind sure does, especially after days without finding its release.

A release that brings you closer to happiness, not an escape from reality.

Everyone has that something they can get drunk on, giving them wings, propelling them into flight into the next day.

It’s that thing that does that does that thing to your heart and that thing to your chest and that thing to your soul.

All to make it easier to do those other things you may or may not want to do, so once those other things are done, you can spend the rest of your waking hours getting drunk.

— George