Impatience

Impatience is the problem. Impatience is the basis of my everything. I multitask when I am not too lazy to do anything at all; I am lazy because I don’t see the point of effort, or not soon enough. I climb the hill rather than examining the bus schedules intimately. I refuse to plan, certain that I will mis-plan, that something will be overlooked, that I’ll miss a point; I am frenetic not to miss anything; I do things to have done them, to cross them off my list; I do not sit quietly and absorb; I want to know the steps to follow to absorb; I cannot meditate, I fall asleep; I am always in a rush; none of it is real; the dreams are more real than the stone of the wall into which, full tilt, I am walking. I speak to the line that has not been spoken and hear the line spoken only too late, after I have already responded. I dwell on the impatience of the past instead of preparing for the transformations of a future in which (with or without transformations) I hardly believe. I travel to see, to hear, to taste, to experience; and I am so focused on avoiding imaginary discomforts that I unsuccessfully see, hear, taste to the highest level even of my desire and experience. Travel is my delight but it makes me violently anxious; perhaps it is the anticipation and recollection that mean more to me than any experience, and this has made me a lousy traveler, a lousy worker, a lousy writer, a lousy lover, a lousy chef, a lousy opera-goer, a lousy reader, a lousy witch, a lousy ritualist, a lousy believer, a lousy friend. I could live a very satisfactory life if I were not so impatient. The spring unwinds soon enough, everyone tells me. I even observe it. I can endure anything except the horrors I anticipate. If I did not anticipate, if I were freed from the perception of time, I could be far happier, more animal, ruled by a kindlier Zeus or Potnia Theron. Consciousness, not fire, is the gift of Prometheus; he reaped his just reward.