Introductory paragraph, Muriel Spark’s “A Far Cry from Kensington”
“So great was the noise during the day that I used to lie awake at night listening to the silence. Eventually I fell asleep contented, filled with soundlessness, but while I was awake I enjoyed the experience of darkness, though, memory, sweet anticipations. I heard the silence. It was in those days of the early ‘fifties of this century that I formed the habit of insomnia. Insomnia is not bad in itself. You can lie awake at night and think; the quality of insomnia depends entirely on what you decide to think of. Can you decide to think? - Yes you can. You can put your mind to anything most of the time. You can sit peacefully in front of a blank television set, just watching nothing; and sooner or later you can make your own programme much better than the mass product. It’s fun, you should try it. You can put anyone you like on the screen, alone or in company, saying and doing what you want them to, with yourself in the middle if you prefer it that way.”
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