The following article was originally published in the August 2011 issue of Animage. The interview has been translated by Twitter user idango © 2017 Wave Motion Cannon

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Q. I can’t wake up by myself.

Hiroshima Prefecture • Hazuki • 17

I have never been a morning person. If someone doesn’t wake me up, I down for the count. I’ve never been one for quality sleep, either — I get in my futon and get no more than one hour of sleep at a time. Come morning, apparently even if my parents wake me up, I have a pretty difficult time getting out of bed (“apparently” because I have no recollection of my parents coming to wake me up). When I hit the ideal amount of deep sleep it’s morning and I still, somehow, end up falling back asleep — I can’t even hear the sound of my alarms. When I do manage to wake up, any motion makes me feel nauseous and I can only move at a snail’s pace. I’m always cutting it close in the morning.

They say early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Recently I read a book that recommends waking up at four, but every time I hear that I just think, nope. It’s fine now, cause I have my parents to wake me up, but I’m anxious about eventually moving out since I can’t by myself up.

I’ve thought of everything, but if you have any advice, please tell me. Thank you in advance.

A. There is no way I can answer this question. Rethink your lifestyle and try to figure out why this is something that needs consulting…

There is no way I can answer this question. You’re piecing together this phenomenon that’s occurring to you, and yet you have yet to note a single concrete reason. Just how long do you mean when you say “never?” If this kind of things has been going on for five or six years, it’s possible that it’s a predisposed condition. If that’s the case, then all I can say is you should seek medical help. If you only have a vague idea of what is going on, then I can only give you a ball-park answer.

You’re someone with a basic education, so surely you wrote this thoughtfully. However, it’s as if you nonchalantly scribbled it without so much as a second thought. With your parents taking the time to wake you up, I can image you live in a cushy environment. Do others often tell you to get your act together? The most important thing for people like you is to evaluate your situation and learn to be conscious of what you are missing as compared to others. From what you’ve written, I can’t see your current trend translating well into working life.

This submission and the reasoning behind my reply marks the third time I failed to find an answer. I ventured on having this answer-without-an-answer printed. When you read this, please try and thinking carefully about why this was something that needed consulting.

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