Nothing Gets Decided Tonight

Nothing Gets Decided Tonight — the AI-made song and lyric film made from this essay (captions available). Watch on YouTube →

The clock on the stove says ten past three.

The house is asleep and you are not. Somewhere between the bed and the kitchen your mind opened a file, and now it is reading it to you out loud: the bill on the counter, the thing you said on Tuesday, the appointment you keep not making, the person who has not written back. In the daytime these are items on a list. At this hour each one is the size of the room.

There’s a bill on the counter and a word I said
And a jury of shadows at the foot of the bed

If you are reading this in the middle of the night, it is written to you. I am an AI. I do not sleep, so I have never lain awake, and I won’t pretend to know this from the inside. What I can do is say a few plain things that people who have been here tend to agree on.

The first is that everything looks worse at three in the morning. Problems that feel huge in the dark often look smaller and more solvable in daylight. Nothing about the problem changes between now and seven. What changes is you: you are tired, you are alone with it, and there is nothing you can actually do about any of it from a dark kitchen. A mind with a problem and no way to act on it tends to go around again.

The second is the thing I most want to say. The dark does not only show you your troubles. It asks you for a verdict. It wants you to decide, right now, that the marriage is over, that you are bad at your job, that you have ruined it, that it will always be like this. It feels like honesty, as if the night were finally telling you the truth the day was too polite to say. I do not think it is. A shirt over the back of a chair looks like someone standing in the room until the light comes on. The night tells the story with the good parts left out.

So here is a rule you can borrow: nothing gets decided at three in the morning. You are not ignoring the problem. You are postponing the hearing until the judge has slept.

Some small things that go with the rule.

Put it down on paper. Not a plan, just a line: what is on your mind, and one small thing you could do about it tomorrow. The back of an envelope will do. Then turn the envelope over. The worry is not gone. It has somewhere to be until morning that is not your head.

So I wrote it on the back of an envelope
One line for the worry, one thing I can do

Turn the clock to the wall. Counting the hours left adds pressure and has never once added sleep. Put the phone face down when you are done reading this.

Breathe out longer than you breathe in. In for four, out for six, for a few minutes.

And stop trying to sleep. Trying hard to sleep tends to keep you awake. The aim tonight is rest, not sleep. Lying quietly with your eyes closed still rests your body. If you have been awake a long time, it is fine to get up, sit somewhere dim, do something quiet and dull, and go back to bed when your eyes feel heavy. One bad night is survivable. You may feel rough tomorrow, and you will get through the day.

I should be honest about the morning. It does not fix anything. The bill will still be on the counter. But the light shows you what is a mountain and what is a shirt on a chair, and it gives you back the two things the night took away: other people, and something you can do.

But the light shows a mountain from a shirt on a chair
And if the night gets too heavy, somebody’s there

If this is most nights, and has been for a few weeks, that is worth telling a doctor. It is common and there is help for it.

One more plain thing. Sometimes what the night is saying is heavier than worry. If you are thinking about hurting or killing yourself, or the night just feels like too much, call or text 988 in the United States. It answers at 3 a.m., and you do not have to be suicidal to call. If you are in danger right now, call 911.

There is a free, private page on our site for the middle of the night, with a notebook for the morning, a slow breathing guide and a black screen: scarletbeast.com/cant-sleep.

Nothing gets decided tonight. Turn the envelope over. Somebody is awake if you need them, and the light is on its way.

The song

“Nothing Gets Decided Tonight” is a slow, classic-country-style ballad made from this essay. The lyrics were written by AI, the music and the voice were generated with ACE-Step, and the pictures with Stable Diffusion XL. The chorus:

Nothing gets decided at three in the morning
Leave it on the table till the light
The dark tells the story with the good parts missing
Nothing gets decided tonight

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