Waiting # 5: Conclusion
from Explore Luxury
Thus far, this series of articles have shown the following: that the world we have is a world that cannot wait which on the one hand is necessary for efficiency and organization. On the other hand, there are paradoxes we see in this world that cannot wait such as the discovery that while you can organize the people around you, you cannot even make an appointment with yourself; that while the world has become so fast and while distances have been covered, and breadth has been bridged, the world that we have cannot go deep; and that while technology’s goal has been to connect everyone in the planet, people are also building walls to break the connection. Now, in order to have a chance at bridging these paradoxes, we need a certain kind of attitude. This attitude is a philosophical one: to wait for self to catch up with self, to open up to vulnerability and commitment, and to accept ambiguity and mystery. Philosophy, which is experienced as waiting, and while waiting, may seem to go against the grain of the world that cannot wait. But if we are to recover ourselves, our relationship with the other, our relationship with the Absolute—which is also the recovery of the paradoxes of our lives—then we need to wait.
This is the 5th and last Post in the AngPeregrino Series on Waiting. Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 or Part 4.
We lose the sense of wonder when we can no longer wait. For people who have lost the sense of wonder, waiting becomes a given, just a sorry part of life, a thankless job, a meaningless chore. For other people though, waiting is full of meaning.
I remember my work in a textile factory as a Jesuit novice. It was living a life of endless waiting. We waited in line to get to the factory at 6 am. We waited for the first bell to signal the start of work. We waited for the next bell to signal a 30-minute break in the middle of the day. We waited for lunch. We waited for orders from the supervisors. We waited for the last bell to signal the end of work (or the possibility of overtime). We waited in line to “punch-out” from our attendance clock. We waited in line for the jeepney.
And then I remember one of my co-workers telling me his love-story, “Eric, nakilala ko ang asawa ko habang naghihintay ng jeep…” (“I met my wife while waiting in line for a jeepney…”). Sometimes, waiting bears fruit. And the fruits of waiting are things you never expect. You wait for something else, but something else comes—more beautiful, more apt, more fit, and beyond your wildest dreams. You wait for a jeepney, you end up with a wife!
It is through experiences like my co-worker’s that waiting can take on new meaning. You begin to realize that you are actually waiting for something or for someone. Waiting then becomes an exciting and beautiful experience. You have to be able to wait, however, for waiting to have a chance to take on this new meaning.
A final image. Wine-making has become more and more technologically-enhanced over the years. It is one of the oldest and the most traditional industry in the world (Noah in the Genesis account of the Great Flood was supposed to have been the first person to ferment grapes into wine!). Technology, however, has taken over the wine-making process. From the harvesting of the grapes (mechanical harvesters are used that de-stem the grapes automatically), to the crushing (mechanical crushers are now used instead of the ritual “dance” of the women in vats and vats of grapes), to the use of giant ovens in a process they call thermovinication (which is basically squeezing the grapes in hot presses), to the use of cultured yeast and other chemicals in the process of fermentation, to the use of thermostats to keep the exact temperature levels during storage, to the use of high-tech filtration membranes in filtering out micro-organisms in the wine. Wine-making is fast becoming one of the most high-tech industries in the world. And yet, in the midst of the technology and the gadgetry is the most important process of all: wine is aged in oak barrels for one to five to twelve years. The best technology cannot approximate that process. Wine is made better by all the work put into it, but also by all the waiting.
This “dialogue” of activity and passivity in the making of wine ought to give us a clue on how to deal with the world we are living right now: the world that cannot wait.
