The Zen of 4 am

‘If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.’ – Mark Twain (1835 – 1910), American writer.

I drafted this column at 4.01 am on Wednesday, but I need to level with you.

It’s nowhere near as romantic as that sounds.

I wasn’t sitting in a hotel lobby, tuxedo bow tie unfurled, cigar smoldering in an ashtray, pecking at an old Underwood typewriter after a long night out with random girls, VIPs, artists, and other assorted fabulous people.

The truth is, I fell asleep that night right after reading and hanging out with my kids on Zoom.

I passed out shortly before 9 pm with a copy of “Friendship According to Humphrey,” about a class pet hamster trying to adapt to a new frog in the room, resting atop my chest. (It’s a fun read. Humphrey is adorbs.)

I’m awake because, over the past three years or so, I’ve joined a new club: the very, very early morning club.

I know many people have lives and jobs that require them to wake up extremely early, but this is a new lifestyle for me.

It took three small children and one pandemic that kept us all home to figure out that if I was going to continue to be productive, and write stories consistently every week, I would need to be productive at an uncommon hour, sitting alone in the dark.

Staying up late is out of the question. Sure, I used to be able to do it when I was a university student, have a cup of coffee at 9 pm, and slug it out, but these days, asking me to stay up to watch the midnight news is like asking me to climb K2.

Plus, my brain is fried by midafternoon. Honestly, tell me anything after 3 pm and you should make me scribble it on my arm.

As for my writing, everything I write after 1 pm looks like a ransom note written by miniature horses. I mean, more than it usually does.

But 4 am? At that hour, I’m sharper.

I’m never going to be one of those executive types who wake up at 4 am for sunrise yoga or meet a trainer for air squats and a 45-minute sprint on a treadmill.

Still, I can summon the energy to wander into the kitchen, make coffee, check market performance on Bloomberg Terminal ‘s 19-inch flat-panel screens, build superb financial models, plop myself into a chair, and type nouns and verbs on a keyboard.

The benefits are obvious. My home is quieter, as is the world, and my head. Nobody’s reaching out to me at 4 am. Email has slowed to a halt.

Texts are nonexistent. The next meetings from office aren’t until 8 am.

It’s just me, the thoughts sloshing around my mind, the low hum of the refrigerator, and some soothing choir songs playing in the background. I can feel my brain moving around inside of my head, excitedly. Maybe that’s the caffeine.

Or perhaps it was the music, so graceful and serene.

I couldn’t help but think about Hayek’s old boom box and that tall stack of CDs he kept beside it in his bedroom, each labelled with names like Chopin.

I remember a rainy Sunday afternoon when he caught me flipping through the CDs.

One had a black cover, with a hundred men and women dressed in white. I pointed to it. Hayek gave me a sceptical look.

“This is choir music,” he said, almost as if he was testing me.

He slipped the disc into the box and then sat down at his desk to work on his math. The music began; first, a breath of strings, then a whisper of voices, chanting, soft as silk but somehow piercing.

The hymn felt so familiar. It was reverent, but it also carried something else—something about study, discipline, and collaboration. Something I didn’t fully understand yet.

The CD played on, track after track, and I sat on the floor, mesmerised.

When it finished, I asked if we could listen to it again.

An hour later, when the music finally stopped, I begged him to replay it.

It was late, the house was quiet. Hayek obliged, hit play again, and told me this was the last time.

“We can listen again tomorrow,” he promised.

Now that I’ve had the house to myself since March, I have been savouring the quiet. This block of time is all mine. No more making peanut butter (PB) & jelly sandwiches (Js) for school lunches—Bella’s clever acronym— picking up Mises’s scattered Legos, magnifying glass or getting my day kidnapped by some inane battle on social media.

I don’t even have to worry about waking anyone. I can tromp around the hallways like Frankenstein’s monster, knowing the kids won’t spring to life and bring the usual madness.

There are drawbacks, of course. My body’s internal clock has fully reset itself.

By midmorning, I’m looking for lunch. Midafternoon, I’m ready for dinner. I find myself craving a nap, and it’s not that shocking for me, the kids, and Humphrey to pass out collectively by 8 pm. If my wife wants to plan dinners with friends or has an on-call shift (because she’s in a time zone 12 hours behind mine), I have to prepare my body like an astronaut.

It’s worth it. Lately, I’ve begun to wonder: Do I dare join the 3 am club?

The very, very early morning ends quickly.
Back in the day, the house would get hit by a hurricane by 6 am. Bella and Hayek loved to get dressed while blasting Olivia Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U,” drowning out the fridge’s hum and any trace of peace. Breakfasts needed making, book bags needed packing, and there were always three things we forgot and had to scramble to find.
The kids could be like a pack of wolves, constantly teasing each other, with little scuffles breaking out at every turn. These would inevitably end with their mother yelling over a broken glass or a misplaced pencil case, but as they got older, there were fewer things left to break.
The rest of the day is a blur, but I’m okay with that. Another very early morning waits.

The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.