I hate waiting. In the Christian liturgical tradition there is a season dedicated to waiting – Advent – during which time the church prepares for the coming of the Lord, both in the eschaton and in the past as the incarnate logos. I suppose that the point is that this interim moment is all spent waiting. The point of advent was purposeful waiting, spent in tasks that not only passed time but gave it meaning. I think that is why I hate the sort of waiting that feels as if I am simply passing away the time of my life with little to gain on the investment.
Right now I am waiting on a phone call. I have a phone appointment for this morning, Aug. 11. between 10:00 and noon. Two hours to wait. I can spend that time doing tasks that feel like they have some meaning, perhaps not nearly as profound as the preparation for the apocalypse, but certainly better than just sitting. But it is the waiting that seems to enforce boredom. And boredom breeds despair.
I have several tasks that I need to be about today, that will need to wait until this call is completed. I have to fill out some paperwork for my schooling; I really hate to do this but it is in my own interest to do so. I have difficulty attending to this sort of task and never feel as if I have done it well. It is 10:20 in the morning; my daughter is still sleeping and I am disinclined to wake her. She has been so drowsy of late. But I digress… that is just the sort of thing I mean. It is difficult to attend to the tasks that require simple concentration with little us of my mind. When my mind is engaged, I am laser-like in focus, but the mundane stuff makes me crazy.
“Boredom breeds despair…” That may be a profound thought (I am almost certain that it is not original). What comes of despair? This is incendiary stuff: I am not so much convinced that it is the noble ideals of humanity that brought about the great revolutions in history as much as it was an attempt to relieve the despair that gnawed at those in its thrall. I think that it was hindsight that brought about any judgment of nobility to the complaints of those who beat back their boredom.
There are times that I feel that I have fallen into a sort of emotional stasis.
I know that I have become very passive, overly so in my estimation. I used to be such a man of action, decisive and resolute. Truly, I could be a force of nature. I guess the climate changed. I have a desire but not the will to overcome this inertia. The inertia is what is causing me more difficulty than anything. I need to start doing. It occurs to me as I write that much of my life of late has been spend “watching” as if I were a spectator, a member of the audience rather than the star of my own life. “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king…” I think I want my money back. This play has no plot and too much conflict.
Overcoming inertia… An object at rest tends to remain at rest, the opposite is true that an object in motion tends to remain in motion. So what happened? I hit a wall three years ago and am still recovering from the impact. Three years is a long time for a guy whose tendency was to recover within three hours. Impact. The idea seems violent. Some force so great as to arrest motion acted upon this object. I think of a rock rolling down a hill. Its own mass is acted upon by gravity. Finally, the combination of the forces causes the stone to begin to move. It is not the mass alone that makes the stone move, but the force that is brought to bear, combined with its own mass, that causes it to overcome whatever held it still. I think that this happens in small increments until, finally, it bursts forth. Sometimes it is a slow motion that continues to accelerate.
All of this is good, but I don’t want it to become masturbatory. I need to think, this is true, but more than that I need to do. And that means that I have to overcome my stasis, my inertia.
I have just spoken with the "gentleman" from EDD (11:10 am). The fellow could hardly speak English and I am not convinced that he understood what I told him. When I restated what he said, so my notes would accurately reflect the conversation, was very curt. I asked for his name and extension to note the conversation and he hung up. I understand that State employees are busy, but damn...
On to face the day.
