I’m too tired to write this blog post.

Last week I tried to do all the things — all the administrative things I need to do at the beginning of a university semester. I still have a lot to get through. There are receipts to file, meetings to attend, emails to send or answer.

And I tried to write as well. I’m most of the way through writing a story I thought of several years ago, and that I started months ago but that was interrupted by teaching in London during the summer. Hopefully it will be done in the next few weeks.

And I had family obligations to deal with, which are not purely obligations — for example, it’s a pleasure to spend time with my daughter. Nevertheless, the start of the academic year is always stressful, for students and parents alike.

And now it’s Sunday morning, and I’m trying to write a post I’ve been thinking about for a while, on why we sometimes get so tired — and I’m too tired to write it. But I’ll try, nevertheless . . .

This post comes from a realization I had recently — or perhaps it’s less of a realization than a hypothesis. I remember that I was in Budapest, and it was afternoon, and I thought, What’s wrong with me? Why do I get so tired sometimes?

There are ways in which my life can be physically tiring. I had just come back from London, where we were taking the students on excursions every week, and on most days I was walking at least two hours, to and from classes, to Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer for food, on street tours of London or in various museums. But I realized that I did not mean physical tiredness, that physical tiredness by itself did not give me that sense of exhaustion I sometimes felt, an exhaustion so deep that all I wanted to do was lie down for a while, someplace light and airy, or escape into the pages of a really good book.

What produced that kind of exhaustion? Sometimes, teaching three classes and holding office hours — after a long day, I would need to lie down for a while. Usually I would not lie down, but would go on working, because teaching would also give me ideas, would inspire me as well, so I would have all sorts of things I wanted to research, to prepare for the next lecture . . . But I would feel that same sense of exhaustion after a morning of answering emails, and to be honest, after a morning of writing. I would feel it after spending a day at a conference or convention, even if I had a wonderful time with other academics or writers. And after spending time with family.

Of course it wasn’t always exhaustion. Sometimes I would be just a little tired, but if I pushed myself, I would get more and more tired, until yes, there I was, completely exhausted. Why?

My hypothetical answer is that some things take emotional energy. Teaching of course, because at the same time as you’re explaining the history of rhetoric or how to use MLA citation format, you’re intensely aware of the students in the classroom. You know who is paying attention, who is looking at emails on their laptop, who has a question they are too embarrassed to ask. It’s a kind of teacherly intuition. Answering emails takes emotional energy, because you’re projecting yourself into the recipient, trying to see the email from their perspective, editing to make sure that recipient will understand what you’re writing. Similarly, with creative writing, the writing I love — that takes energy too. I’m projecting myself into the story, into the minds of the characters. I’m living in them for a while. And at the same time, often, I’m also projecting myself into the minds of potential readers, trying to see the story both from my perspective as a writer and from their perspective. Will they need a paragraph break here?

Being a parent always takes emotional energy. It’s intensely rewarding, and there are wonderful things you get back for the emotional energy you expend, but I have to be honest, and I think other parents would say the same — it can be tiring. Friendship, I find, doesn’t take the same emotional energy. Sitting and talking with a friend is closer to an exchange — you get energy at the same time as you give it, and after meetings with close friends, I find myself refreshed. It’s like reading a good book. Reading, if it really is a good book, also gives me energy. Faculty meetings take energy. They’re like teaching, in that I usually come away from them with ideas, things I want to try. But it takes energy to listen, interact, to be completely present. It’s the same for a conference or convention.

When I say that something takes emotional energy, that it tires me, I don’t necessarily mean that in a negative way. Teaching, writing — these are all things I want to do. I’m happy to expend energy on them, just as I’m happy to expend physical energy on going on to parks or museums. What I was trying to understand is how they tired me, what sort of energy they required. And I think it’s emotional energy — the energy that flows out from you when you’re interacting with another human being, even hypothetically. Of course you can get energy from another human being as well — which is why, I suppose, I receive emotional energy from meeting with friends or reading a good book.

I suppose the important thing is, if you’re tired, to understand what kind of tired you are. Are you physically tired? Emotionally tired? Spiritually tired? Because there are different ways to deal with each kind of tiredness. For physical tiredness, you need to rest and sleep. For emotional tiredness, sleep is important as well, but so are taking walks in the park, reading books, meeting with friends. For spiritual tiredness, which is a category of its own, the remedy (I think) is something like spending time with trees and looking at the sky. You need to somehow drink in the essence of existence.

At least, the above is true for me. But I know that people are different, and fall in different places on the spectrum of introversion to extroversion. It may be that you, if you are an extrovert, get your emotional energy in large crowds, all shouting for a sports team. Or from being on a stage in of an audience, channeling their emotions. I am on the introverted arm of that spectrum, and my energy comes from small, quiet things, plus chocolate.

Today I’m so tired because last night I made a mistake. After a day of writing and dealing with administrative issues, which included talking to a chatbot and three different customer service representatives because two airline websites were both malfunctioning (Swiss and Lufthansa, I’m looking at you), plus trying to deal with UPS, I was so tired that I did not have the energy to get ready for bed. So I stayed up too late watching silly video clips on YouTube. Even thought watching films and videos involves absolutely no physical energy, I always find that it takes quite a lot of emotional energy, in a way that reading does not. I’m more tired after a movie than before. I did not get to sleep until much too late, so today I am both physically and emotionally tired. Maybe even a little spiritually.

I have a lot of work to do. But sometime today, I’ll take a walk in the park and do some reading — not for work, purely for pleasure.

And you know what? Now that I’ve written this, I feel better, more energetic. Writing may take emotional energy, but it also gives me something powerful, which is that I’m talking to you, whoever you are, and that’s a bit like communicating with a good friend.

(The image is Fresh Flowers by Lee Lufkin Kaula.)