Are you feeling tired?

I recently saw a show on Swiss television about feeling tired, in which Georges Vigarello, an 80 year old popular French historian and sociologist was pushing his book on feeling tired. 

Beside being also an academic, Vigarello’s main research interests include the sociology of the body, the history of hygiene, the representations of the body over the years, and the social dimensions of sport. A nice guy, but that didn’t bring anything interesting to the table, except that it piqued my interest for the subject of feeling tired. 

As strange as it may seem, it’s been a very long time since I can remember having felt tired. Of course, I’m retired so I work much less than before and don’t suffer from too much stress, but I also don’t travel extensively like I used to, so that must account for that huge difference. 

What is true is that when I’m done reading at 10 pm, I feel exhausted, not just from reading, but from a long day that began between 5 or 6 am, so nothing exceptional about it. I remember that when I was a kid, anything that I didn’t like, tired me immensely, like chores, real work and school. 

Then, during most of my adult life, stress took the relay of making me feel sick, uncomfortable and wishing I’d be something else and doing something different. Since I’m retired however and except for some bedtime exhaustion, I never feel tired anymore, and this is one good thing about growing old!