As I initially began reading the text, I thought the main theme would be around the inability to sleep, and how the mind can race at night much to one’s dismay. Ideas of lucid dreaming or sleep paralysis came into my mind. Early on, Proust mentions the thought of falling asleep waking him up, this is something I am sure many people, including myself, can relate to. The constant state of feeling the need to be asleep unintentionally ends up stopping you from the goal. Although the writing went to other places and touched upon many things, the main thing I took away from it was the importance of rituals and how fragile routines are, and even though the main focus was not always entirely on sleep, for me, that was the main takeaway.<\/p>\n
I heavily sympathized with Proust as he discussed his anxiety around not getting his mothers goodnight kiss. The text was beautifully descriptive and painted a clear picture of what the feelings and energy at this dinner were like, it put me in a place where I felt like I was watching over this family and their guest enjoy the evening. Even though I did not understand everything that was said, the main idea of needing this nighttime ritual was undeniable relatable. The roller coaster of emotions that the author went through when he was sent to bed, writing his letter, and eventually met with his mother and father in the hallway had me heavily hoping that the young boy would get his goodnight kiss. I did not expect to be rooting for something while reading this text before I begun. A motto my dad always thought me to live by is “in x amount of time, this likely won’t matter anymore” and I will always use this in situations where something in the moment is unpleasant, or I am dwelling on something out of my control, and Proust discussing how in the morning all of his anxiety from the night will be gone reminded me of this. I think it is interesting how although we are all different from each other, there are many human universals, one of which being anxiety. This text coming from a different time of life, as well as a different country, also by someone from a different social world than I am, still carried so many emotions that I have felt. Of course, everyone experiences these emotions in different degrees, but it is natural that we all find ourselves dreading things beyond our control, and feeling uneasy at the thought of it. From there, then coming up with different ways of coping. This got me thinking, is it inevitable that when our routines, our rituals, the things that bring us the most peace get disturbed, that we must feel anxiousness and worry? It does seem as though we must, it seems almost impossible to prevent, however, it would be nice if it wasn’t this way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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