What Makes 4 a.m. So Special

I've been in love with 4 a.m. for about 18 months now. Here's the first set of photos I posted from 4 a.m. last summer. It's an amazing time of day, but I never really thought about WHY I liked it so. I knew it had something to do with the solitude of the city, but I couldn't express what more I liked about it.

NPR recently had a 6 minute piece about 4 a.m. And it's title succinctly describes what I like about that hour:

"Which Time Of Day Is Both Too Early And Too Late?"

That's it! I don't often feel too threatened out at 4 a.m. like I could feel at 2 a.m. The drunk college kids stumbling around have already found their way home. Any other "dangers" of the night seem to be put to bed. But yet the early risers (the old folks who like to walk their dogs early, the morning joggers, etc) are still in bed. It's too early AND too late at the same time.

Here's the 6 minute radio clip:

The clip mentions Rives and his talks about 4 a.m. Below are 2 videos of him on the TED stage. Here he is in 2007:



Here he is again last year where he responds to a people contacting him after his first TED Talk:



Here are a few interesting lines from the radio piece:

Poets talk about 4 a.m. as a "time of extraordinary stillness."

"You are awake at the worst possible hour!"

"I think 4 in the morning is the modern 'dark and stormy night'."

"I think it feels special because, for most people, it's a foreign land. It feels special the way that Paris feels special: we only go every once and a while."

Check out Rives website here: fourinthemorning.com. And CLICK HERE to see all my posts tagged with "4 a.m." (currently this post and 3 others with photos).