my continued conversation with insomnia ( and tv , a slight return ) 3:45 , ungodly hour , time of ghosts and heartquakes ... christ ... not again , damn insomnia ... beautiful thing , thing of beauty ... breathing sweetly , bangs slightly sweaty ... that soft lower back ... let it go , let it go ... mmph ... trousers , book ... just close this , let the wife sleep , sweet sleep ... read for a while , stop this merry-go-round in my head ... shut up , damn you ... find that trick to re-enter sleep , it is a trick , one minute , wife , bed , office , house , reality of flesh and fleshly pain , then nothing , just a trick , a mental twist , but not mental that 's the trick of it , the opposite of mental , what would that be , not physical , the trick of oblivion , the non-thought ... a zen thing , ach , frivolous mindpath ... the light ach , jesus ! ... damn , hate that ... sleeping and wakefulness lovely but the door between , there 's the hell of it , there 's the pain , study that why do n't they , the trapdoor between the worlds , that split second , when ... mmph , that 's better , not so swimmy now ... read for a while , calm this inner demon ... hmm , message in the bottle , is this what i was reading ... no , never seen this , percy , yes , familiar , but ... wait , here ... the loss of the creature , my bookmark , yes , here ... mmm ... why is it almost impossible to gaze directly at the grand canyon under these circumstances and see it for what it is as one picks up a strange object from one 's back yard and gazes directly at it ? ... hm , got something there ... it is almost impossible because the grand canyon , the thing as it is , has been appropriated by the symbolic complex which has already been formed in the sightseer 's mind .