Just as space has matter and dark matter, human beings do things and in between doing different things, they wait. Waiting is like dark matter because it fills such a huge volume of space, yet at the same time, it is invisible and intangible to us, but still affects our lives on very deep levels. We all wait, whether it’s for the sun to rise or for it to set, for how few moments of our existence are we not actually waiting on some level or another? Is life itself not a million little mouse traps of anticipation set up to catch their prey? I am fascinated by the concept of “waiting” and how we all as individuals handle it differently. We don’t often times play the waiting game,as much as the waiting game plays us. There is that distinct touch of self truth when we see how it is we wait for the things we desire, because it shows us where we have control and often times, more importantly, where we lack it. While I cannot examine the deep psychological reasons for certain behaviors in relation to certain types of waiting, I can certainly help further define what it is the mind conceives of and what behaviors we display when we are waiting in certain situations. So in the true fashion of most any blog, I will give a handy dandy list of those moments in time when we are engaged in anticipation and how we deal with reality at that point.
Waiting to Eat. When our desires are primal and our body needs things, waiting becomes a conflict akin to an imaginary friend coming to life and pushing you around until it gets its way. You may choose to think about what you intend to eat, practically tasting every morsel in your mind or you may rather choose to exert some will power and direct your mind elsewhere. How long will you wait? Most of the time, you will wait as long as you have to, but I guess it’s safe to say if you are hungry enough, you won’t wait at all!
Waiting to go to the bathroom. Whether it’s number one or number two, there are few urges within us that cause such stress. When you have to go—you have to go and when you finally do…well, if you could bottle that feeling up, you would be able to sell it as the world’s most addictive drug. It’s all about time and place and we can not always act as our bodies would want us to, so we may be forced to tap our toes,withstand drinking any more water, and quite possibly avoiding another cup of that strong coffee at work which is quickly liquefying your insides.
Waiting in line. When we get in line at some place, whether it be the grocery store, the bank, or a fast food place, we know that we are going to wait a certain expected time and then services will be granted to us, but what if the asshole in front of you decides to wants to write a check instead of paying cash, what if the person in the car in front of you has to ask the guy at McDonalds what is on the cheese burger, and what do you do when all the bank tellers seem to get every one’s deposits taken care of before yours? Do you tap your toes? Do you tap your fingers? Do you look back and forth towards the person ahead of you or stare out at some other point in space, trying to summon some thought which when over will find you next in line ready to do your thing? It’s funny how we can totally zone out at points in our day that fill up more time then most time we wait for something,yet there is no stress involved. Does the Id really have no ability to reason?
Waiting in traffic. This one can get messy and frustrating really quick. You are waiting for the traffic to clear, waiting to pass the slow cars, waiting for the train to cross the tracks, waiting for your boss to call and bitch you out as to why you are not there, waiting to drink the coffee you bought but can’t sip because you have to start and stop your car every minute or so and its hot as fuck. When you wait in traffic, you wonder how much you love your fellow man, as it really brings to perspective just how much of inconvenience we can all be to one another. How much of our life is really just petty conflict? Maybe it’s that way to desensitize us to the greater conflicts we will experience in life, like someone slapping you repeatedly in the face before they finally deck you.
Waiting for the opposite sex. I’d say waiting for a girl, but I realize there may be some women reading this, so I had to make it appropriate. There is nothing that will put you into more of a stupid daze then when you are hard up for meeting up with that special person in your life. Your brain is loaded and ready to blow with excitement (no pun intended) and you are just sort of skating around on auto pilot until that times comes. It’s in that time of waiting that your brain goes into fantasy mode, whereby you can imagine all the things you’ll say and do, but maybe that is too much for you and you have to bury yourself with work and just go buck wild with your friends so you can keep from dwelling.
Waiting to puke. Whether you just drank too much or ate something really bad, we have all hugged our toilets at one time another with much love and tenderness. If there is a fire storm in your belly, then there is no other place on the planet that you would rather be then right there on your bathroom floor in front of your toilet(normally a place with the dirtiest floor in the house). This is a bitter sweet way to wait, because you want it to happen but then again you don’t. You may pray to God that you’ll never drink again or swear off of that new burger joint down the street from you, but you know that your waiting will not be in vain as you can taste the rush of saliva in your mouth.
In closing, waiting is like the mind asking a question and trying to answer it at the same time. It is a time when our destiny has already been set for us yet amidst that time is the conflict of the present itself. All the time in between waiting for the things we do, life is happening all around us, so it’s like our mind is setting the points and the world itself is drawing the colors as we connect the dots. In a sense, our life is all the stuff we don't set out to do but wind up doing anyway. So I choose to end with a quote by John Lennon who summed it up best: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
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