Anyone Else Nocturnal...?
All of my life, as far back as I can remember, I have had difficulty going to sleep when everyone else did. I would lay in bed completely awake and alert just waiting for sleep that wouldn't come for many more hours.
I would spend that time getting acquainted with the night. Laying in bed in my darkened room starting out the window. Searching the shadows, watching small things move, observing the stillness. Every single night was spent like this until I was old enough to explore the night time world.
When I was perhaps 11 or 12, after years of the night calling to me, I slipped out the window. At first I confined my travels to my immediate surroundings. I learned dark greys and browns conceal better than dark black which creates a hard silhouette. I learned that in the dark it is movement that is seen and not shapes. I stayed low, often flat, I learned to listen before I moved, I scanned the entire area...where I was and where I intended to go. I chose emergency concealment points along the way should something previously unobserved arise.
I moved deftly from shadow to shadow, pausing to see if I had been observed, and when the night remained still and quiet, I moved again. I learned to scan the area in front of me for tell tale flashes of headlights behind me which had just turned onto the road. I learned to check the rear with every 5th step I took. I learned to climb trees in close so as to not produce a recognizable silhouette, only moving one limb at a time in a slow deliberate manner that didn't shake the limbs or produce much movement.
I learned to emit a low whistle before entering any fenced yard that might contain a dog and to then listen for the tell tale rattling of a chain or dog tags on a collar. I learned to approach into the wind whenever possible. Dogs do not smell you and the scent of somebody smoking in the dark is carried towards you. You then simply look for the glow of the burning cigarette.
I learned the moon creates many shadows and offers a great amount of illumination if it is needed, and that the new moon is the darkest night when such things are preferred. I learned rainy nights are the perfect night to accomplish a goal. Most night owls are driven indoors, the sound of rain and thunder covers any sounds you might make and heavy rain eliminated your tracks.
I began to go out into the night several nights a week. I would give myself "missions" to accomplish. I spent much of my daydream time coming up with challenges for myself, the more difficult to achieve the better. The more stealth required to be successful, the better. At around 4 am I would come home and sleep the most restful sleep I had ever known. Getting up in the morning for school would become one of the hardest things I had to do. I was no friend of the morning.
I became talented. I would observe neighborhood cats moving through yards only a few feet from me completely unaware of my presence. When I attempted to approach them unobserved they would freeze in place sometimes only 6-10 feet from me before sprinting to safety. I would sit still and motionless for what seemed like endless periods of time listening to how loud my heartbeat was, controlling my breathing through special exercises which limited how often I needed to inhale and exhale. After years of practice I could drop a rapid heartbeat from my last sprint to a relaxed rate in a matter of seconds. I could control my breathing to an almost imperceptible level. And as a consequence of my trained breathing patterns I would render every polygraph evaluation ever taken as an adult inconclusive.
As a teen I began to conduct night activities with my friends and those who were kinda friends. I attempted to teach some what I knew, but most were more interested in the usual teenage mischief associated with being loose at night than anything I had to teach them. It is probably for the best as their efforts, which usually were related to vandalism, petty theft of property left out at night or tapping on girls windows didn't need higher rates of success.
I found a couple who were like me, and we became a cohesive unit. We would come to know what each other would do, how they would do it and when they would do it without a word needing to be spoken. We devised hand signals for communication long before we knew what a Navy SEAL even was. But it was about this time that I met a student of Bud Malmstrom and I began learning the Togakure system. Before that I relied on books by Andrew Adams and the Donn Draeger to get a few pointers.
This continued well into adulthood. No matter how crappy my minimum wage job was, even if I didn't get off work until 2 am, I would be gearing up "to train" and would be in the shadows with my current "crew" until 4-5 am. I would find all manner of excuses to train. Every weekend there would be night time paintball games with my adult friends whose wives still let them out to play at such hours.
Only very recently, with the demands of running my own business are my early AM hours spent indoors. Taking care of a few things that demand my attention which cannot be done during the day with phones ringing, dogs whining to go outside and other constant interruptions. I then usually relax by winding down with a movie or good TV show and an Ovaltine. I then retire to bed between 2 and 4 am and read until I can finally fall asleep.
But when I shut off the light I still spend some time looking out the window, and the moon behind dark clouds still calls to me. I still search the shadows and watch the small things move in the dark. The primal urge within me still longs to practice my predatory nature and go looking for things that need doing and feats that require accomplishment. I still note the position and phase of the moon, I instinctively plot paths of travel from various points to other points based upon greatest levels of concealment offered by a given approach.
It's hard to be a ACLU hating, philosophically Libertarian, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, scientifically grounded, agnostic, porn admiring gun owner who believes in self determination.
Chuck, we miss ya man.
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Originally Posted by scottryan
(someone give him an infraction)
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