I’ve found myself at one in the morning just sitting at my desk spending an hour returning emails from the day until like two in the morning. It’s ridiculous, I should be sleeping, or dreaming, or reading a novel.

Marling is lamenting the way modern work habits—especially the always-on pressure of email—colonize private time and erode the mental space needed for rest and imagination. The late-night scene at her desk conveys compulsion rather than choice: she knows the behavior is “ridiculous,” yet she still performs it, suggesting how productivity culture can override bodily needs. Her alternatives—sleeping, dreaming, reading a novel—point to forms of replenishment and interior life that nourish creativity. Implicitly, the quote defends boundaries and the value of unstructured time, arguing that art and well-being require more than constant responsiveness.