Tiredness is a strange beast. It raises its head in so many different guises that it is hard, sometimes, to determine its nature or intentions.

There is the tiredness at the end of a long day spent well in hard physical work outdoors: a clean, all encompassing tiredness that says “You have done well. You may now sleep.”

This is very different from the tiredness resulting from a day spent sitting at a desk, or on a sofa, staring at a computer screen and trying to write a report, or produce computer code. That tiredness is not clean, and does not reassure you. Instead it says “Well that is a day you will never get back. Maybe you will make more of tomorrow. Best sleep now and see what it brings.” But so often sleep does not come.

Then again there is the form that comes from having not slept, or slept for only a short part of the night: A powerful, mind numbing tiredness that infiltrates the darkest corners of the mind, bringing a deep hopelessness and a difficulty in thinking or acting, frequently accompanied by accute stress. I frequently fail to sleep, and so this is my constant companion.

Today was a day off for me, and two friends persuaded me to accompany them to the beach, to lie and read on the sand, and to have good conversation and interesting thoughts. There have been few days for a long time where I have done less with my day, and certainly not many with less physical exertion, and yet the first type of tiredness is heavy upon me now. Why would this be? Is it perhaps that it is not what you do, but where you do it that contributes to how you feel by day’s end?

P.S. Incidentally, the name of this blog came from the fact that many of the thoughts and ideas that form its basis originate while walking the foreshore for my work. Today’s thoughts are from a very different place, but also very much from the foreshore. A strange juxtaposition, with equal parts familiarity and novelty.

Last modified on 2025-06-12