The Virtual Rambler

Number forty seven : 20^th April 2014

Waiting

When younger we valued spontaneity , immediacy and risk. Time passed and we started to react against rising tides of impatience by advocating the merits of prolonged consideration. Popular song proposed that tomorrow is a brand new day but Joseph Brodsky was of the opinion that “Tomorrow is just less attractive than yesterday. For some reason , the past does not radiate such immense monotony as the future does.” This is particularly true for the elderly noggin , in which much more of the former has registered than a predictable latter. For the time being we senior citizens accommodate ourselves to our dripping taps and erratic boiler , the leaking toilet and consequently crumbling plasterboard. We are urged to “get these things seen to” in a metaphorical echo of those exhorted health-checks we also waive in favour of the daydreams we enjoy during our regular afternoon doze . . . .

Throughout my reveries of more youthful days moves the spirit of my mother predominantly , with walk-on parts for her brother Edward and for my dad. All three clung to their parlous niches on the inhospitable slopes of their times , seeking a modicum of harmless mirth and the small pleasures of life , nevertheless. They lived through two World Wars punctuated by global economic chaos. They dwelt among the architects of that disturbed dream , the Century of the Common Man. Glimpsing some brief hope after 1945 , they were gradually deprived of any sustained prospect of a promised land to come. They walked towards a landscape of vagueness , with imperfections and impermanence looming on all sides. Unlike the generations to come , they were attached to the values of silence and understatement. They knew how to queue and they knew how to wait.

Their offspring became so mired in the phantasmagoric marsh of urban commodity capitalism that they took it to be an intrinsic feature of their lives , rather than the contingent , historically-constructed fantasy that it was. The Western mind sank towards that easily excited and easily satisfied state of childhood which the media and politicians fostered for their own ends. Before we descended into Instagram World , we were all too often waiting. Waiting for something or someone to relieve our boredom , waiting for some source to spark our interest or to raise a laugh. In between times , we were waiting for a bus or train , to take us first to school and then to work. We were waiting outside an interview room , waiting beyond a maternity ward. We were waiting for a marriage to unravel , to grudgingly slide into the awaiting role of an estranged parent. Waiting for Godot , for someone to come out of somewhere. Waiting for one’s climbing partner , who seemed to be experiencing some problems. With ever-diminishing expectation , we were waiting for time to unmask falsehood and bring truth to light.

The comma was once used as a punctuation mark to indicate a pause. In the can’t-wait-a-minute frenzy of modern life , pauses cannot be tolerated and so the comma became extinct beyond a shrinking circle of obscure intellectuals. For the must-dash majority , pausing or even worse , waiting , has become an aberration , an embarassment. The magazines in dentists’ waiting rooms , the ubiquitous television programs throughout hospital waiting rooms , are there to ameliorate it. For the young , an xbox , snacks and constant smart- phone use are available to deny it. To accept waiting nowadays verges on becoming a dissident act. From finger-drumming motorists stuck behind a cautious driver to those impatiently awaiting their next-day delivery from Amazon Prime , any postponement of desire has become an irksome imposition. Even for a few seconds , let alone a whole day. Why wait for what you want ? What’s the delay ? For the elderly , however , waiting can be all that’s left to occupy their time. From necessity more than inclination , they’re in no hurry. They are slow in motion from waking up to beddy-byes time. Theirs are days of thin continuous dreaming , watching light move. It will soon come to pass that they bid farewell to even those sparse remnants of life , perhaps unembraced and certainly unknown. One of Turgenev's characters says , “Its an old joke , death , but its new for each one of us.” We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep. All things come to those who wait.


Wig

Archive

Virtual rambler #1 – Posturing, 9^th March 2010
Virtual rambler #2 – Managerialism, 17^th March 2010
Virtual rambler #3 – Nostalgia, 27^th March 2010
Virtual rambler #4 – The Alpha Male, 13^th April 2010
Virtual rambler #5 – General Elections, 3^rd May 2010
Virtual rambler #6 – The Leisure Industry, 15^th May 2010
Virtual rambler #7 – Guide to The World Cup, 15^th June 2010
Virtual rambler #8 – Human Nature, 12^th July 2010
Virtual rambler #9 – Communities, 13^th August 2010
Virtual rambler #10 – Worlds Apart, 6^th October 2010
Virtual rambler #11 – Dawdling, 22^nd November 2010
Virtual rambler #12 – ELVIS, 24^th December 2010
Virtual rambler #13 – Transience, 4^th February 2011
Virtual rambler #14 – Regional Accents, 15^th April 2011
Virtual rambler #15 – The Afterlife, 21^st July 2011
Virtual rambler #16 – Bizspeak, 27^th August 2011
Virtual rambler #17 – Night Walks, 3^rd October 2011
Virtual rambler #18 – Bob Dylan and Charles Dickens, 8^th November 2011
Virtual rambler #19 – Another Nutty Professor, 16^th December 2011
Virtual rambler #20 – Customer Choice, 16^th January 2012
Virtual rambler #21 – Wearing Shorts, 18^th February 2012
Virtual rambler #22 – A Brief History of Progress, 17^th March 2012
Virtual rambler #23 – The Myth of Sisyphus, 16^th April 2012
Virtual rambler #24 – Natural History, 20^th May 2012
Virtual rambler #25 – European Self Importance, 26^th June 2012
Virtual rambler #26 – Sweet Dreams, 25^th July 2012
Virtual rambler #27 – Excess, 17^th August 2012
Virtual rambler #28 – In Denial, 20^th September 2012
Virtual rambler #29 – The Way, 21^st October 2012
Virtual rambler #30 – On Rambling, 14^th November 2012
Virtual rambler #31 – Gazing Into The Abyss, 18^th December 2012
Virtual rambler #32 – Intellectual Gloom, 25^th January 2013
Virtual rambler #33 – Great Human Achievements, 20^th February 2013
Virtual rambler #34 – Autobiography, 20^th March 2013
Virtual rambler #35 – Your Good Health, 21^st April 2013
Virtual rambler #36 – Deconstruction, 20^th May 2013
Virtual rambler #37 – My Home Town, 19^th June 2013
Virtual rambler #38 – Ancient History, 21^st July 2013
Virtual rambler #39 – Possessions, 20^th August 2013
Virtual rambler #40 – Sporting Stoics, 20^th September 2013
Virtual rambler #41 – Free Time, 20^th October 2013
Virtual rambler #42 – Ewan Don't Allow, 20^th November 2013
Virtual rambler #43 – A Literary Nexus, 20^th December 2013
Virtual rambler #44 – Taking Liberties, 16^th January 2014
Virtual rambler #45 – More or Less, 20^th February 2014
Virtual rambler #46 – Under Control, 20^th March 2014