Hi friends,

I'm so tired. I haven't slept a wink.

Things I can't do when extremely tired: Deep focus. Not make stupid mistakes. Listen carefully and attentively to what you're saying. Remember things. Make good decisions.

One time in college, I remember hitchhiking with a truck driver who was explaining to me the complicated relationship truck drivers have with sleep and fatigue. Basically, he was saying you make more money if you don't sleep and just drive, so when he was coming up, drivers would push it really far. Even more so once study drugs like adderall became available.

Unfortunately, the effects of extreme fatigue and tiredness can be pretty intense. Obviously, you can fall asleep at the wheel, but also fogginess, slow reaction times, poor decision-making, even hallucination. Basically, tiredness can be like a mind-altering drug. Which probably isn't a great idea for someone driving 80,000 lbs of metal battering ram down the highway. The National Transportation Safety Board suggests as many as 30-40% of heavy truck accidents could be caused by fatigue, which is why there are restrictions about how many hours a day a truck driver can drive, how much rest they need, etc.

So yeah, I probably shouldn't drive a truck right now.

The good news is that I don't have to — and the same symptoms that would make me a liability on the road might actually help me make music, at least in certain ways.

Things that I can do when tired: Roll with sh*t. Play. Apologize for stupid mistakes. Giggle uncontrollably. Flow downriver. Forget to care.

There's no doubt that I work the most efficiently in the mornings. I'm focused and attentive. I can get in the zone easily. I can ping distractions away with gusto, whablam! I can vanquish obstacles with an imperious look and contemptuous smirk. I'm sparky. I'm the sassy M&M. I'm Robert f#@&ing Moses.

But I work most creatively late at night. I splatter paint. I don't overthink. I access a convulsive spirit, a kaleidoscopic lens. My output chuckles effusively from out of unknown pores. The inhibitive guards normally restraining my impulses have all gone home, leaving just Dave and Dave lets me do whatever I like. There's a reason he was hired for the nightshift.

Morning Ian has to heavily edit Late Night Ian, but that's OK, because Morning Ian probably couldn't have come up with any those ideas on his own. He's powerful but limited.

When I'm alert and energized, it's a good time for difficult projects, or projects where I know what I'm trying to do for the most part and can execute at a high level. When I'm tired, it's a good time for play, for expressiveness. For letting the contour lines that separate self from air dissolve, and whatever toxic or perfumed potion's been gurgling away inside recently bubble forth unedited. I'm too tired to edit anyway.

An example: Yesterday, I tried to open up a pretty complex arrangement I'm working on. It took me about 30 minutes of slogging through it to realize that I was too tired to make progress on it. One doesn't always have that luxury, but I did. So I tacked. I sought to run downhill by finding projects at the start of their incubation, where improvisation, experimentation, expression, and thoughtless flow would be more valuable than care, precision, and focus. I ended up having one of the most fun afternoons making music I've had in months.

Being tired can suck. (In particular, it can make it very hard to parent, or at least to keep my patience in the face of my kids' relentlessness. The importance of sleep and being well-rested is probably the single biggest lesson I've learned since becoming a parent.)

And yet, it's not always in your control. Sometimes you have to deal with the situation as it is. Sometimes you are tired or low energy. Un-sought-after, unalterable, undeniable. What are you going to do about it?

I should credit this week's email in part to the amazing experimental pop artist Kimbra, who's teaching a course with us on the Art of Life Performance right now. In this week's workshop, she talked about taking things that might be out of your control or burdensome and finding a way to re-frame them. There are so many things out of your control when playing live. Re-phrasing or re-framing them in a way you can work with is a profoundly creative act that will help you be more flexible on the road and on the stage.

Today, I'm trying to live that idea by making tiredness an opportunity, an opportunity to be more free-flowing, more stream-of-conscious, and more intuitive, to rely on my subconscious rather than my intentional self a bit more. As the Beatles memorably said:

"I'm so tired, I'm feeling so upset,
Although I'm so tired, I'll have a cigarette
and curse Sir Walter Raleigh,
He was such a stupid git."

What about you? How do you approach being tired? What are obstacles you're facing right now that you might be able to turn into opportunities? Let me know — would love to hear it!

Yours, sleepily,
Ian

Five Interesting Things This WEek

1. Poetry is an anti-AI elixir. Inject what you're doing with poetry in some way, and no one will mistake it for AI-created content.

2. I find people are too quick to attribute a specific "sound" to a certain plugin, rather than thinking expansively about what a plugin can give you. What if you practice and master your plugins like you did an instrument? What could that give you?

3. The passing of Gene Hackman brought to mind one of my top 5 all time movies, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Gene's character's epitaph: "Died Tragically Rescuing His Family From The Wreckage Of A Destroyed Sinking Battleship." I find it a celebration of beauty, human frailty, & imagination. Also, the soundtrack is fantastic. RIP Gene.

4. Don't forget to look up. When you're working, when you're walking, when you're wasting away... look up.

5. Everyone's been sharing Doechii's Tiny Desk Concert with me, and I understand why. It's energetic, surprising, fun, colorful, and the musicians are tight. Highly recommend.