The jumping spider does not build the classic spider web most of us picture stretched between branches waiting for prey. Instead, it creates a tiny silk retreat. A little sleeping chamber woven from fine white threads and tucked beneath a leaf, inside a curled piece of bark or hidden amongst grass stems. If you stumble across one in the garden it looks almost magical, like a miniature tent made from moonlight. Inside, the spider rests safely away from predators, wind and weather. For such a fearless little hunter, it spends a surprising amount of effort creating somewhere comfortable and secure to retreat to at the end of the day.
What’s the one luxury you can’t live without?
I was thinking recently about luxury. Not the kind sold in magazines or parked in driveways, but the things that quietly make life better. The older I get, the more I realise luxury is not really about having more. It is about having the things that genuinely improve your quality of life. For me, one of those things is a good bed. A bed that feels warm, comfortable and safe is one of the greatest luxuries I know, even if most people would not think of it that way.
The funny thing is we live in a world that constantly encourages us to sacrifice sleep. Stay up later. Watch one more episode. Scroll a little longer. Answer a few more emails. Get up earlier. Work harder. Push through. Sleep is often treated like an inconvenience, something that gets in the way of productivity. Yet almost every scientific study on human health points in the opposite direction. Good sleep affects everything from memory and creativity to mood, immune function and long term health. If something has that much influence over our lives, why would we not prioritise it?
That question becomes a little more complicated when you are trying to build an art practice around a full time job and a family. Most of my creative hours exist at the edges of the day. They happen before work, after work or when everyone else has gone to bed. There is something magical about those quiet hours. No interruptions. No responsibilities demanding attention. Just me, a sketchbook and whatever strange idea has wandered into my head. Some of my favourite work has been made while the rest of the house was asleep.
The problem is that every late night comes with a trade off. I can feel productive sitting up drawing until midnight, but I am still borrowing energy from tomorrow. The bill always arrives. Sometimes it shows up as brain fog. Sometimes it shows up as irritability. Sometimes it shows up as staring at a drawing the next day wondering why I thought it was brilliant at eleven thirty the night before. Creativity loves time, but it also loves a healthy brain, and that is where the balancing act begins.
The muse has to find you working. Success requires sacrifice. You have to want it more than everyone else. There is some truth buried in there somewhere. Art does require commitment. But I am becoming increasingly suspicious of any philosophy that treats exhaustion as a badge of honour. A lot of people are burning themselves out chasing a future they will be too tired to enjoy when they arrive.
What I keep noticing in my own life is that the real enemy is not sleep. The real enemy is distraction. I rarely regret getting a good night’s rest. What I regret is spending an hour mindlessly consuming things I will not remember tomorrow and then telling myself there was no time left to create. Those are very different activities. One fills a gap. The other builds something.
The jumping spider understands something I am still trying to learn. Before it heads back out into the world to hunt, explore and do what it was built to do, it first makes sure there is a safe place waiting for its return.
Kids Book Illustrator Andy C Marshall 