Wake up at 4:30AM if you are lazy and uninspired. Wake up at 4:00AM if you have real work to do.

Once every few months I wake up at 4:00AM without an alarm. I don’t know the day or week it will happen, only that it will happen at about that cadence. My body is flooded with urgency, not a cool artsy urgency, an emotional “need to pee real bad” style urgency. On these occasions I race to my computer and start typing immediately.

Modern culture has lost touch with the archetype of the Greek mantis, or “seer”, or prophet. Not in the religious sense as that word has come to be understood but in the creative sense. I sense that this is due to the prevalence of digital tech in our world. Jocko Willink, the Navy Seal-turned-author who popularized the 4:30AM club did so by posting an Instagram photo of his digital watch displaying the time every morning. Structured regimens have become the lauded path to greatness. People I talk to in my day-to-day life are really proud of their numbers, the quantifiable, the digit-al. It is remarkable to wake up at 4:00AM or work n-more hours than everybody else, but it’s not the only way to skin the cat. Just because something is indirect does not mean it is not worthwhile.

It’s always been odd for me to crunch myself into this monotonous kind of way of working. When I’m creating something over a period of time (I always am), the real work happens in the background. When I’m out for a walk or bouncing a lacrosse ball, the real work is being done by some strange organ in the weirder recesses of my mind that I can’t consciously peek into. It always churns out a result but on its own time not mine and certainly not when the beep of a watch demands it.

I’ve found the most successful people blend the quantifiable and the intangible approaches in whichever ratio works for them. You can wake up at 4:30AM to get a workout in every day and still go for a long run in the afternoon when the mood randomly strikes you. Some amount of consistency will actually feed the chaos. The impetus for writing this essay serves as a perfect example.

I’ve been writing a first draft for, assuming it reaches maturation, my third book. Every day for months now I’ve committed myself to writing at least 500 words every morning until I hit my word goal and begin editing. Today I woke up with that 4:00 AM urgency. No alarm just that weird kinda analagous to anxiety feeling. I hopped out of bed pissed off because it was early. I stormed over to my office, opened up NeoVim and slipped into a flow state immediately. I all of a sudden knew exactly how my book opened. The only other time you feel that kind of obviousness is when you’re drunk and making a decision. There is no second guessing, just a total confidence that that a quadruple bacon cheeseburger is definitely going to fit within your calorie goal for the day.

You can’t do shit like that when your whole life is spreadsheets and numbers and routines and rules and moral superiority and all work no play. The whole enterprise gets hollow because there’s no authentic vision, just the compromise between a bunch of bland ideas. So establish a few routines and keep at them, it’s the only way to keep your execution skills sharp. But make time for cocktail napkin drawings and feelings and distractions and rulebreaking and openmindedness and all play no work.

But, do yourself a favor and keep this a secret yeah? Store it away like that bluebird who old Bukowski keeps locked up in his boozesoaked heart. There are loads of people out there who have their whole identity wrapped up in The Numbers. Autheniticy and vision is terrifying to these types because it feels threatening. It’s a leap of faith, balancing on stones poking out of the stream, lane splitting at 100MPH. Hunter S. Thompson puts it like this, “With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he’ll never know.”

Be very aware of those who obey the metronome monotony in a world that doesn’t have to be dead. And, most importantly, never trust a prankster.