Lighting by Emily

Lighting by Emily - January 2019 Scholarship Essay

Light is both awakening and tiring: it all depends on its source. During the brightest hours of the day, while most things are active and lively, something slumbers until only a few hours of that sunlight remains. That “something” just so happens to be me. I am never awake in the daytime, it seems, but instead I reside in the nighttime. The sun just doesn’t do it for me – I’m much more creative under the minimal, soft artificial lights.

I’m not quite sure what it is, but at the darkest hours of the night until the faintest spark of the morning, I have an incredible level of inspiration. I’ll be resting, watching videos until I see the clock strike three A.M., when suddenly a wave of creativity fills my brain. If I’m too tired at the time, I’ll quickly write down a thousand words or sketch out an image in order to retain the idea, but wake up in the morning often uninspired by the concept any longer. Ideally, I will keep going until I just can no longer keep my eyes open enough to print my ideas onto paper. There are even times when I get so obsessed with writing an essay and willingly stay up until six A.M. in order to finish it.

The daytime, however, is not entirely useless to me. I don’t see the sun until at least noon, but the four to six hours of natural light are where I have the most conscious energy: this is when I edit, when I decide what actually is a good idea and what isn’t. Sometimes, I try to plan out my work, but it never goes as planned. My daylight thoughts and patterns just aren’t the same; I could attempt to organize for hours during the day what I can solve within a few minutes during the night. That is why I use the night for my creation, and the day for my polishing.

Nevertheless, I will always work best in the nighttime. Daylight only provides use for me when I need to focus, edit, or plan, and therefore I don’t schedule myself much of it. I am awake and asleep when no one else is – since my greatest ideas come from the darkest of hours, the darkest hours are where I reside. Artificial lighting is the most awakening source for my mind to create.