The Art of Passing the Time
Waiting is just another name for waiting and waiting can be beautiful
Dear Readers.
I’ve been thinking about how humans used to be really good at waiting because waiting was part of every day. Waiting for a letter. Waiting for a harvest. Waiting for a hunt.
We even had to wait for the next episode of our TV shows.
But now we rarely wait for anything, so all of our waiting muscles have atrophied. We scarcely know how to wait for an idea or a deep thought. We’re horrible at waiting to see what someone has to say. We flinch with chagrin the moment we have to stand in a line.
We’re so used to an action/reaction world, a world of instaneity, that we practice impatience more than we practice patience. We’re really good at impatience, in fact. It’s amazing how much we trust our impatience when it has delivered so little.
I wonder when waiting became such a negative thing. I wonder what would happen if we decided that waiting was actually a good thing: an opportunity to pause, reflect, catch our breath. An opportunity for anticipation and excitement. An invitation to imagine.
What if we viewed waiting not as a waste of time, but as a good use of time?
I recently talked to Lily Dancyger on the Write-minded podcast, and she talked about how she’s always been in a hurry with her writing, but that hurrying has never sped it up. It took her 11 years to write her last book despite being in a hurry the whole time.
In Waiting for Godot, Vladimir and Estragon practice waiting for its own sake and with no particular goal in mind. We wait with them, confronting matters of existence and eschatology while time is passing. The passing of time stops mattering. As Vladimir says, “it would have passed in any case.”
I sometimes wonder if we should practice wasting time, just for the sake of wasting time. We practice productivity a lot, after all. We practice making good use of time. But when we make such a good use of time, do we feel all of time’s textures and contours? What do we miss by not simply enjoying its passing?
Creative action
How to practice waiting? Mail a letter and wait for a response? Plant a garden (or a single plant you can focus on)? Watch your favorite show only on Thursday nights? Think of the time you have to wait for the next plane or train as luxurious, glorious?
What a treat to be in between two worlds with nothing to do.
See what happens if you practice waiting in every part of the creative process. See what happens if you approach life with the expectation to wait, not to go.
Because I went to a party
I didn’t know I wanted to go to a party (especially a party with Baby Yoda). In fact, I didn’t want to go to a party. I like to stay home now (a funny thing to say as a party type of guy). I wanted to stay home and watch the documentary about Andy Warhol (who I’m somewhat obsessed by, and now I wonder if Yoda was based on Andy Warhol, but … more on that in an upcoming newsletter).
The pandemic smothered my very feelings of a party, but I found myself invited to a party. And it was a party thrown by a friend who is really good at throwing parties. And it was a really good party.
I was glad I went because I remembered how humans are wired for parties, for connecting with people (we have “mirror neurons,” after all), for saying silly things and having fun just to have fun, just because you’re in a room together at a party.
I talked to a lot of people I didn’t know, and I loved them as if we were old friends. I made a lot of really bad jokes, which is one of my biggest pleasures now, to make a bad joke and then try to find a way to make it funny (it’s an activity much like climbing a mountain without ropes), and sometimes people laughed, although I think one man didn’t like me. Yoda didn’t laugh, but I think he was laughing on the inside.
Because I almost gave away my novel at the party
One woman at the party asked where I was from, and I told her that if she guessed right, I’d give her the rights to my novel. I kind of meant it, because if you have something that’s been taking up space and you’re not doing anything with it, you might as well give it away. It’s like an old TV, if it still works, you might as well give it to someone else to watch.
She didn’t get the answer right. The hint was “the state with the most hogs.” Iowa is the state with the most hogs. Iowa has 23.8 million hogs, and Minnesota, which is in second place, has only 9 million hogs.
She was an agent, and I don’t think she really wanted another novel, so she wasn’t upset when she didn’t win it.
But I’d like to find someone who wants the novel because I like the novel a lot, and I rarely say such things about my writing. So I’m going to start submitting my novel soon, not just in conversations at parties.
Because the answer isn’t always what you expect
When the great historian Herodotus asked the Skythians the size of their population, one Skythian pointed to a bowl, which was made of the melted down arrowheads required of each Skythian by their king Ariantes on the pain of death.
Herodotus described the population of the Skythians like this: you could easily pour 600 amphoras into the Skythian bowl and the metal has a thickness of 6 fingers.
A reminder that we all measure things differently.
Because custom is the king of all
Another Herodutus story:
Darius summoned some Greeks and asked them for how much money they would be willing to eat their dead parents. But they answered that they would not do such things for any amount of money. And after that Darius summoned some Indians (called Kallatiai), who eat their parents, and asked them for what price they would agree to burn their dead fathers with fire. But they shouted aloud and bid him not to speak blasphemy. Thus these things are established by custom and quite right is Pindar, it seems to me, when he says in a poem Custom is king of all.
We forget this sometimes, but we’re all living within our customs, our expectations.
Which is why it’s good to travel. And good to write stories. And good to wonder about the meanings of your customs. And good to partake in other customs. And good to live under the rule of other kings. And good to go to parties.
This week’s word: elixir
I like the word “elixir” just because I like the power of the sound of it.
I also like the letter “x.” You can’t go wrong with the letter “x.”
It’s a sexy word. It’s a word with verve.
An elixir is a sweetened aromatic solution of alcohol and water that is believed to have the power to cure all ills.
That’s the literal translation, but of course, an elixir can be anything that gives you power. I try to always have an elixir at hand.
What is your elixir? Choose one, just to have something powerful nearby, no matter if it’s a charcoal-infused smoothie or a crystal or lavender spritz.
Could your elixir be the act of waiting?
Because advice
Last night I went to a circus performance1 themed to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and one of the show rules was to not have sex with IcyHot, which seemed prudent. Interpret that how you may.
Because a haiku
I came back but you did not yet there I was with you
Because a photo prompt
Use this photo as a prompt, as a random catalyst, as an igniter for any writing project you’re working on.
Or … simply write a story about this photo in less than 300 words and share it in the comments below.
Because Melissa Febos knows how to write
All the Comfort Sin Can Provide
If you like this newsletter, please consider checking out my recently released collection of short stories, All the Comfort Sin Can Provide.
Lidia Yuknavitch said:
“Somewhere between sinister and gleeful the characters in Grant Faulkner’s story collection All the Comfort Sin Can Provide blow open pleasure—guilty pleasure, unapologetic pleasure, accidental pleasure, repressed pleasure.”
Grant Faulkner is executive director of National Novel Writing Month and the co-founder of 100 Word Story. He’s the author of Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo and the co-host of the podcast Write-minded. His essays on creative writing have appeared in The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Lit Hub, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer.
For more, go to grantfaulkner.com, or follow him on Twitter at @grantfaulkner.
The Vespertine Circus, which I highly recommend.
This is a great reminder about how far we've moved as a culture from waiting, accepting "boredom," letting the mind wander freely, without stress about waiting. I grew up waiting a lot, and not automatically thinking of "wasting time." I worry about my children who have the phone constantly at hand and have little tolerance for non-engagement. As writers especially, the mind free to wander is a gift.
Well said. As you pointed to, one of the many great practices of tending to a garden is waiting. Right now, I'm waiting until the last frost to start planting new seeds and seedlings. There's no rushing it, just waiting and watching the smallest little buds start to form in the meantime.