We read in the ARA that Japan's new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, known for "being a tireless worker," left home last Friday "shortly after 3:00 a.m. to convene a meeting with advisors before an appearance before Parliament."
Holding a meeting after 3:00 a.m. makes no sense, unless you're a morning radio host or a baker. It's either a desire to put on a show or—I've often encountered it—insomnia with an alibi. "I got up at 3:00 because I had to work," they tell you. And you think: "No: since you got up at 3:00, you started working." Hitler slept little—Albert Speer explains this in his memoirs—and he would convene nightly meetings or exhausting film sessions that left all the Nazis dazed and momentarily without the desire to exterminate.
Many people find in the workplace the warmth they don't find at home. This is true. At work, in our jobs, is where we receive the inconsequential little flowers, the jokes, the camaraderie, and—and I use a word often despised but with a unique and brilliant meaning—"brotherhood." The baker listens to the customer's joke, happy to buy bread, but at home it will be met with a dismissive gesture. The delivery driver will laugh with his colleague about this joke they made on the radio, and when he gets home, they won't even look at him. Breakfast together at the table, sharing a tangerine, brushing teeth together, taking turns bringing the coffees. Some people will only receive smiles outside the home. True. But holding a meeting at three in the morning is to highlight the domestic burden. There's no child, no teenager, who needs you to be sleeping in the next room. It's been ages since you've been cuddled in bed, wonderful, or even had a "Goodnight" said to you. That's why you leave the house at three in the morning instead of preparing for the meeting the day before.
