Tire Factory
The Business of Insomnia
Setting: A hushed, timeless study, the only light spilling from a glowing hourglass that never seems to empty. Sophia sits at a large mahogany table. Across from her are a restless Dylan and a determined George.
Sophia: Welcome, gentlemen. The night is deep, and the hour is ripe for reflection. I’ve been contemplating what keeps the modern world from its sleep—what fuels this perpetual, flickering energy. I call it The Business of Insomnia.
Dylan: (Shifting in his seat, a notebook open but untouched) That title is the very marrow of my unease. I've observed that the true misery of doing nothing isn't a lack of comfort, but a crushing emptiness. If you chase pure relaxation, you only corner boredom. Yet, the moment I commit myself, wrestle with a poem, a play—that struggle itself, the work—is what offers a strange, deep sense of peace. It's the paradox of the driven soul: we seek rest, but find it only in the effort that seems to deny it.
He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.
— Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Sophia: A fascinating tension. You suggest the mind, like a muscle, atrophies without resistance, leading to a kind of psychic restlessness.
George: (Sitting erect, his hands clasped firmly on the table) I approach it from a different kind of battlefield, but the principle holds. When the stakes are high—when a nation’s security or its very future hangs in the balance—you cannot permit yourself the luxury of weariness. There is a deep, moral obligation to perseverance. To even consider becoming tired or wavering is to accept failure before the first challenge is met. That kind of resolute commitment, that focus on the goal with an absolute refusal to quit, becomes the only viable path forward. It’s not about finding rest, it's about making sure your will does not buckle.
We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.
— George W. Bush (1946-present)
Sophia: So you both, from the artistic to the political sphere, define fulfillment not through ease, but through sustained engagement. Dylan, you find stillness in the creative struggle. George, you champion a relentless tenacity, where wavering is the truest failure. Is this, then, the core of our sleepless industry? Not anxiety, but a deep, inborn belief that to stop, to truly put down the burden, is to invite a form of death—be it the death of the spirit or the death of a cause?
Dylan: Perhaps the insomniac is simply the person who has mistaken the journey for the destination. They think the goal is a soft bed, when in reality, the goal is the long, hard walk itself.
George: If you are marching toward a worthy purpose, there is no time to look for a bench. You simply keep moving forward. The business of insomnia, Sophia, is simply the business of being alive and taking responsibility for what you are creating or defending.
Sophia: (Nodding slowly) The wakefulness, then, is not a curse, but a calling. A price paid for meaningful existence.
Do you believe this drive is a uniquely modern phenomenon, or has humanity always found rest only by seeking work?
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