winter showers bring rishi's room smart bulbs

and he just can't get the combo right

It’s been raining for three months straight. The grey skies keep my room dark enough that I have to turn on the lights in my ceiling fan in order to reach full visibility in the mornings. A few months ago, around when the rain started, I put smart bulbs in my ceiling fan so I could change the lighting in my room to a combination of hues that I felt more deeply represented who I was. The lighting in my room has always been important to me, and three overhead light bulbs placed at 60 degree angles, washing my room in a standard coating of 3000 Kelvin, was contributing to a fierce sense of depersonalization.

A few months ago, I really desired the tang of combining red, pink, and red-orange, with a splash of purple coming from the lamp on my nightstand, such that existing in the room felt like living inside of a jolly rancher. But I recalled that one of my close friends had a similar color scheme going on in their room, and the tang turned sour, as I felt like I was ripping them off. Whenever I feel that one of my ideas is derivative, I get filled with a minor sense of dread and disapproval. I feel like I’ve made a waste of my brain’s capacity towards original thought. It feels like I’ve chosen to eat a box of cheez-its for dinner, and am running on empty calories. 

For a while, I switched the colors to red, blue, and green. The way these three lights created shadows reminded me of Photoshop’s tri-color effect, used to convey the sense of “glitching” you find in comic books. This environment energized me. It restored to my character a sense of heroism in a digital world. But as you learn in science class, blue light has a higher frequency than red light, and thus dominates in visibility when they are placed in competition with one another. Added to the uncharacteristically grey skies of Los Angeles, the blue light added a true sense of gloom to my days. Green, although a color that ideally represents nature, tranquility, and organic material, sometimes also makes me feel sickly. The combination was unsustainable. 

this is right for somebody just not for me

I am deeply affected by small changes in my environment. I, like a houseplant, lean towards any trace of sunlight, and use it to ration my optimism. Cloudy skies fog my mind, and slight chill makes me a more tense kind of person. A text, read with the wrong tone, or an unexpected noise when I desired quiet; a pink light, a red light, a blue light, a green light where there shouldn’t be, are all sophisticated ways to strike me with a blunt object. 

Right now, I’m trying 3 light bulbs tuned to complete red. I’ve slept poorly this month, on account of spending every second I can avoiding time alone. I hang out with friends instead of crafting a solo evening, which thus makes it harder to fall asleep, and reduces the amount of time I have to rest before my 8am alarm. This compounds daily, into lethargy. I’ve turned my bed into the epicenter of WFH. As I ease myself back into comfort with my own company, I try to recall the habits of those I’ve known who do the best job of pulling themselves together. These people are in bed at 9, work from their desk, and employ red lighting for the last hours of the day in order to sleep more restfully. 

On my first night employing this tactic against unwellness, the crimson hue covering everything in sight immobilized me. I laid on my bed, over my covers, in a familiar limbo of knowing I have a routine to accomplish before I go to bed, but lacking the energy to accomplish it, given that I was tired enough to desire bed in the first place. This feeling, amongst the red layer to my vision, was more intense than usual. This particular environment had lured me into a cryogenic state. My mind cast itself off into the now hell-adjacent corners of my living quarters.

I wondered about the since-debunked pop-science question, does everyone see this red the same way that I do? If so, does it make them feel this way inside? Would anyone I met on the street be able to recognize the twisting feeling in my stomach as grief, and the weight of my eyelids as resignation? If anyone could recognize this fire in their chest, or the stiffness of my legs, then how is it that they lie comfortably in their beds, below the covers, unencumbered by the imperfect temperature of the light bulbs in their ceiling fan?

Or am I particularly sensitive to the changing of small stimuli? Another grey sky. A room doused in red. Uniquely attune to the presence or absence of what yesterday had to offer.

I hope the sun returns to us soon.