It must be the chronic lack of sleep. I was thinking about the old optimist/pessimist trick today. The greatly over-estimated saying that a glass can be seen as either half full or half empty. In a moment of mediocre apathy my mind tried to use it on life itself. And I came to the conclusion that this way you do not get a positive statement either way. My version tells you that you can be either half alive or half dead. Neither can be seen as very encouraging. Maybe the idea of being half dead is slightly preferrable due to the fact that there must still be some life about you if you're only half dead. Sounds vaguely hopeful somehow. While being only half alive carries a midly degrading tone. Of course you could say "well, at least I'm half alive." Doesn't that sound almost desperate though? Doesn't it imply that you're one half less alive than desired? And curiously, implying something actually highlights it in a subtle way. Even though that might be like remarking "if the glass is half full, it means that the other half was spilled for my enjoyment." But let's rather not get deep now, shall we? However, I think it should be mentioned also that being half alive at least guarantees you some amount of life, which the other doesn't. And one half is still better than nothing, isn't it? Well, it should just better be the right half.