If your computer is like mine one of the first messages that pops up on the screen, just when you are trying to get started, is “Please Wait.” This is the mantra of the modern age. My old typewriter never told me to wait. If we are foolish enough to use the automated checkout at the supermarket we rarely get far with our groceries before being stopped by the message: “Please wait, help is on the way.” Oh no it’s not. Help is out to lunch.
It is a poignant reminder that, while we imagine that we are living in the fast-moving world of the twenty-first century, in fact there is nothing fast about it. We have been trained and bullied into waiting for almost everything. If you make the mistake of travelling during the summer you will probably waste much of your vacation time waiting at airports: waiting to check in, waiting for security, waiting for your flight and, at the other end, waiting to disembark, waiting at passport and customs barriers, and waiting for your bags to arrive on the carousel, if they ever do. Standing with an impatient crowd at JFK last week, I calculated that, during my longish lifetime, I have, at minimum, spent the equivalent of five days and nights waiting at baggage carousels.
Waiting is one of those universal human activities, or inactivities, that we rarely think about. Only the very rich never have to wait, and the rest of us spend uncounted hours on checkout lines, in doctors’ offices, at the DMV, or on hold for some more-or-less imaginary “customer service representative.”
In some ways, it is true, technology has reduced waiting time. We used to wait for the mail, but now we have instant electronic communication. We used to wait for packages, but now Amazon delivers them, it seems, even before they were ordered. The microwave and fast food have reduced the time between the desire to eat and eating virtually to zero. But for most things in life we have to curb our impatience, and wait.
There are two kinds of waiting: passive and active. The passive kind is forced on us by circumstances and is always for the convenience of other people or machines. Active waiting is the kind we choose. There are those who make a profession out of it: security guards or tree farmers for example. Others wait for pleasure, like fishermen who sit on riverbanks for hours at a time in a kind of Zen-like tranquility.
Some people make an entire lifestyle out of waiting, as if the present moment is a kind of prelude or prequel to some anticipated big moment in the future. Samuel Becket’s play “Waiting for Godot” is the classic drama of perpetual waiting. The two tramps on stage are waiting for someone or something that will make everything right for them. They discuss their situation endlessly, and even contemplate hanging themselves, but they can’t manage even that. The tramps put a kind of genius into their waiting and it’s clear at the end of the play that they can’t stop. Waiting is what makes their lives worth living. It gives them something to do when they have nothing to do. They have learned resignation, they have learned patience. We should all be so lucky.
Copyright: David Bouchier
