Preferred Consciousness: Why do we Wake Up?

Oftentimes, we look towards children as packages of energetic laughter. They live in the days where alarm clocks are still a sophisticated and unneeded concept. Their simple schedules consist of waking up, eating, playing, eating, playing, eating, playing, and sleeping. To them, waking up signals an opportunity to start a day of fun and making work for Mom and Dad. Sitting up in his Batman pyjamas, covered by his Lightning McQueen blanket, the average 3-year old boy rubs his eyes, walks to the bathroom and stands on his stool to brush his teeth. Even then, he's plotting his fun-filled day of toys and TV; his motivation to get up and out of bed.

To the average student, this question occupies the first few minutes of a morning after a very long night: "whyyy?". He spends the dreadful first five seconds of consciousness begging the world to pause and provide him with just a few more minutes of shuteye (also known as a snooze button). After one, two, or even three jabs at the alarm clock, he unwillingly accepts that he must leave the comfort of his blanketed womb and lazily stumble into an awaiting, busy world...with frizzled hair and bad breath. Shuffling to the bathroom, he pulls up the toilet seat and...well, you know. All this time, he's thinking back to the events of the night before: cramming for an exam, writing a paper, alcohol, loud music, or a daring smorgasbord of the former.

Surely, we don't always wake up to fond memories of college nights spent wisely, however. One day -further in the future than I can imagine myself- we'll have to grow up and realize that we have actual responsibilities in our lives. An interview, a job, a spouse, children, aging parents. Suddenly, after our own carefree days of being dependent on the world around us, we become slaves to those we truly care about. Whether it's to the unwelcome screams of newborn children, or to the pre-dawn wake-up alarm telling us to get ready for work, we know to wake up, in order to be the very best parents and caregivers we can be.

What about when our lives veer off the course of normality? Maybe your cousin accidentally broke your favourite toy bulldozer yesterday? Today, you wake up to see a spot on your shelf where it used to sit, faithfully waiting for you every morning for the last five months. Sadly, it doesn't look like today will be perfect anymore. Or what if rather than spending the night partying, you stayed up until 3am on the phone with your now-ex-girlfriend, painfully explaining why you two would never work despite your "perfect relationship". A sleepless night blends into a coffee-stained morning of emptiness and regret. Weeks pass and you're still not back to who you once were. Every morning, you still wake up, asking yourself, "why?", but for drastically different reasons. And God forbid, if your aging mother suddenly falls ill and takes a turn for the worse, what would you do? Shutting eyes and counting sheep are no longer effective as your mind wanders through the possibilities. Startled from a nightmare, you'd wake up on a tear-soaked pillow after less than four hours of sleep, and begin the day by wondering if you should assume the worst and begin to make arrangements for her farewell, or act out a normal life as if nothing was wrong. Maybe you shouldn't have gotten out of bed at all.

Funny, how we feel as if we can't move on, even though we're in no immediate danger ourselves. Of course, we wouldn't be "normal" if we couldn't internalize and react to traumatizing events. Sadness, anguish, and emotional pain can be (and oftentimes, is) overwhelming, to the point where we feel that escaping reality and allowing our minds to run free to its desires in a state of suspended consciousness (we know this phenomenon as "dreaming") is more worth our time. It's a state of mind which everyone must experience; where one fundamental piece of our lives is ripped from existence, leaving us to question our emotional stability without it. How we react to it differs from person to person, but there's always that first instance of shock, followed by grief, anger, regret, and finally, hope. For some, depression may be able to find a comfortable niche between regret and hope, erecting a tremendous wall between sadness, and recovery. Here's where we begin to ask ourselves, why do we wake up?

Perhaps, in the toughest circumstances, there's no answer. And there won't be an answer for a while, until you make your own reason to crawl out of bed. As we grow older, we gain intelligence and experience, as well as emotional endurance. So, as adults, it may seem foolish that anyone would grieve over a mere plastic bulldozer. The same could be said for young love gone awry. But to the fun-loving child, and to the naive teenager, these small inconveniences are emotional death sentences. You may scoff at their sorrows, remembering a time when problems were so simple, and remembering all of the losses and victories since then. As grim as it may sound, there's always someone who's having a worse day, yet they still manage to stay optimistic that things will start going their way again one day soon, and so they wake up, looking for the pick-me-up that's bound to come their way.