Natural States

It is some time during the day.  I am fully dressed, and the room is well lit.  This is a natural state. 

It is 3 a.m. and I am asleep.  This is the ideal natural state

It is 3 a.m. and I am laying in bed, half asleep, thinking profound useless thoughts.  This is also an acceptable natural state.

It is 3 a.m. and I am awake, in the dark, in my robe, only the glow of the monitor lighting me.  This is an unacceptable, but still natural state.  

Tonight I wake up around 2:30, I am tired, but wide awake, as I have been since I first layed down at 10.  In nature this would devolve into the unacceptable state.  This time I tried something different.  

It is 3 a.m. and I am fully dressed, the room is well lit, and I'm being somewhat productive.  This is not a natural state.  My brain can't reconcile the fact that I have background pings of sleepiness as "I should be asleep," it's misappropriately thinking that "I should take a nap."  It's odd, but it's not the self destructive introspection and extrapolation ad absurdum that comes when I run out of distractions in my unacceptable state.  This is healthier.  It isn't as healthy as sleeping.  It's not even as healthy as laying semi comatose thinking.  Insomnia takes away a lot of options; for years I was played the card I was dealt and I suffered for it.  Now I play the game much less often, and tonight I have found a new card to play.  This is not a natural state, but it is acceptable.