Without hostility, without insecurity, with complete vulnerability if Early Bird meets Night Owl and they talk about what they have in common, what is there?

Not the early bird VERSES a night owl.

Something more like early bird and night owl in love?

What do they have in common?

Isolation of the Early Bird.
Isolation of the Night Owl.

Isolation.

They both crave isolation. I asked my mother-in-law about this recently in front of my bride: why she woke up at the crack of 10am, why Tara followed suit. They both spoke nostalgically, almost longingly about the peace of the evening when everyone else is asleep. About how much they can get done when they’re alone. It’s the same sort of longing that enters Brandon Sanderson’s voice when he speaks of being a night owl.

But you know what?

It’s the same longing I heard in my modest-humble-yet-workaholic mentor Dr. Scott who used to shout out, “Thank God it’s Monday!”

This man literally woke up at 4am for years. Why?

This too is no soul’s hour. No one’s awake. It’s isolation that leads to productivity.

Which tells me productivity — industriousness — seems inextricably caught up in contemplation that leads to art. That is to say the thinking (science) behind the making (ars).

“All of humanity’s problems, stem from man’s inability
to sit quietly in a room alone.”

— Blaise Pascal

It’s really just a moment to breathe, think, and do what we ought.

We all want no soul’s hour.

We really just wonder, at the end of the day, if we want to get ramped up before going to bed or ramped up the moment we wake.

Which depends, in part, on when our brain gives us our daily adrenal shot.

So when you wonder why the other person is different.

We’re not that different.

We all just want to be left the hell alone when it’s time to think, work, and make. And that goes for the early bird and the night owl both.

So maybe, just maybe:

Consider whether you ought to get mad at the person who kept you up late.

Consider whether you ought to rage at the person who got you up early.

Consider whether you’re really just terrified to sit in a room, quietly, alone.

With nothing to make, nothing but you.

And your thoughts.