In the beginning of a life waiting is long. All forms of waiting. Waiting suggests that every possible sense of pleasure is absent. Perhaps that is the problem. That absence can only be comprehended as a form of subtraction, but only concerning good things. Other things don’t count, like carrying out garbage, being bullied at school or even simpler, a grey grey day.
Waiting equals that something has been erased, the vacuity of direction. An observant person could reflect that it is necessity that has been blurred and one just have to sit tight until the blur falls back in line again. Necessity is a little soldier. How awful, at any time, not just in the morning when reading the newspaper online, to imagine an army of necessity. Whole brigades of necessity moving the enemy line steadily forward with no intention of pulling back until it’s too late and the damage done.
Every necessity is its own force, but because it’s incorporated in an army it cannot be held responsible. Necessity only obeys orders following the chain of command, submitting to worked-out, established hierarchies. Think twice before you invoke necessity.
Come to think about it there are one or two exceptions. Or just one although it comes in different shapes. A form of necessity that is rare and that one should care not to shy away from. It’s just that it’s so unusual that when it shows up many can’t recognize it, don’t know what it is or retreat because not seldom does this form of necessity travel in company with fear. This is a form of necessity that left the army and that took of its uniform, but not because the army was too violent, on the contrary in as much as it wasn’t violent enough, and over centuries nourished an inexhaustible belief in tactics, feedback, technology and, worst of all, honour.
Ordinary necessity although it poses as non-negotiable never really is. It’s always necessary in regard to some or other relation. It’s necessary because it’s too cold. Hadn’t it been for the increased oil prices it wouldn’t be necessary. The separation became necessary when, followed by something incriminating, shameful or unethical. In other words, this is a form of necessity that is conditioned by something external. Weak necessity in the sense that it needs a partner or accomplice, or perhaps, something to authorize its direction. Necessity that needs an instrument to gain the required momentum, the of essence courage to reach its goal.
The exceptional form of necessity is different. It has no direction other than its own fulfilment, which seldom is synonymous with a goal. On the contrary, its realization not rarely coincides with its own demise, and in hindsight, it can appear abundantly absurd or impossible to retrace necessity.
“What was I thinking, giving up my studies in order to be with him?”
“Well, at the time. You weren’t exactly thinking.”
“I know, but why didn’t anybody tell me? It was like begging to be run over by a bus.”
“But we did. We told you. We told you a million times. We sent you text messages, e-mails. We even planned a poster campaign, but then you were already gone.”
“You should have…”
“Yeah, and you just replied over and over again. I have to follow my instinct. Even if it seems rushed, it’s destiny. It’s just necessary.”
This form of necessity isn’t instrumental and serves no purpose. It relies on itself and requires no support structures. It has no allies and knows no boundaries in regard to its manifestation. It’s completely illiterate concerning tactics, strategies or decency. It’s faithful to itself to the bitterest end, but betrays without arrière-pensée and is extremely short-sighted. Where conventional necessity nibbles and saves a little something for tomorrow, this is a form of necessity that devours, that like a snake swallows its prey without table manners in one magnificent bite. Most of all, it is impossible to explain.
Perhaps it’s required to have an encounter with exceptional necessity in order to discover waiting. To arrive early in order to have the pleasure of waiting. After all, waiting is like a thermal wind gaining altitude towards transcendence to the same extent that it detaches from reason and justifies its own existence.
Waiting not for something, just waiting. Not for something to come to an end. The last note of an early 20s century symphony performed by a mediocre French orchestra in a concert hall built with a brutalist attitude some time during the earlier 1970s. Or for something to begin. The delayed boarding time after a five plus hours layover in an airport with a McDonald’s installed between the tech shop and Max Mara.
An American burger outlet in the transit zone, call me conservative, but that thoroughly ruins every grain of elegance attached to waiting. Wasn’t the supplementary value to travelling by air precisely the sensation of simultaneously being in and out of time, suspended in non-time looking out through thick glass at time passing like any ordinary Tuesday. Isn’t that why everywhere is so beautiful when looked at from the inside of an airport. Looking at pictures you’ve taken at an airport is like a stare down with disappointment.
Just waiting. Actually, just waiting, however easy it might sound, is quite the opposite. Waiting for the sake of waiting, so to say, tend when practiced without proper rigour to transform into something else, an activity or even pursuit. Just waiting, must not be misinterpreted or practiced like meditation. Just waiting has nothing to do with spiritual enlightenment or optimising personal performance. Still, it has equally little to do with being lazy or lethargic but is conditioned by a tension between connecting and falling through, a sense of being extremely private in an environment that’s excessively public.
And we are back at the airport again but remember not to visit any of the lounges. They are crucial for the experience but only as a scenography for the bare passing of time. The lounge is for people that feel disconnected when using wireless headphones and are addicted to powerpoint presentations. Airports, obviously passed security, although fast food and saggy heated up ciabatta like sandwiches are eminent environments for waiting, perhaps because here time is not passing, it exists. In airports waiting becomes tangible, almost liquid, like vodka stored in the freezer.
One should remember not to take reversibility for granted. Disinterested interest is something else than being interestedly disinterested. Waiting for no particular reason, just waiting, implies a form of joy, pleasure or even satisfaction without relation to one’s desires or appetites.
Almost as in the layout of a simple diagram, a relation appeared in the mind. Necessity, conventional necessity, in the diagram shared coordination with force. On the other side, which might have been left or right, up or down, but never the less the opposite, waiting coupled with intensity, and mind you exceptional necessity.
Are you a somewhat freaky person if you think about stuff like this. Or is it first when the thought arrives attached to an imaginary diagram that the freaky shows itself?
Intensity, is a force that hasn’t found its name, that somebody forgot to baptise, and therefor can’t be properly claimed. Force is simpler. It’s directional, named and can be inscribed into chains of event, into causation. A force is reliable, can be measured and carries high probability. Intensity plays no such games; it moves in mysterious ways and can’t be attached to estimated probabilities or foreseeable results. Waiting is intensive, whereas too much, almost everything in the world connects to force and forces.
Application of force is repeatable and the result of each attempt will be more or less identical. Each application slightly different but still comparable. Like when you turn the ignition key in a car and although it didn’t happen the first few times, somebody could say, “it’s so close, just one more time”. Intensity works differently, it’s not repeatable and doesn’t keep up the good will. It’s powerful but doesn’t accumulate power. It’s more into waste than one more time. Intensity occupies a realm that might be called singularity. Which is not like being single, with a need to cuddle up. Nor singular in the sense of recognisable but unique in regard to a context. Like, for example, Maradona was a singular football player, still among football players. Intensity’s singularity is a different ballgame. An entirely other story. Waiting belongs to that story, at least sometimes.