Zero patience

Do you need to be in touch with your lover/spouse/friend/family member 24/7? Do you find instant gratification too slow (much like internet speed in South Africa right now)? Do you wonder if your microwave is flapping gently rather than actually waving? Drum your fingers at a red traffic light? Tap your toes in a supermarket queue? Already finding this blog not snappy enough? Well, you might just be suffering from that modern malaise, impatience?  I do. Just today I stood in an ATM queue which snaked around the corner of the bank wondering why (a) the queue was so long and (b) which idiot was holding us up.  “Bloody beginner’s day at the ATM” I muttered to my sister, completely destroying the purpose of the loving kindness meditation I’d done earlier.

I heard the phrase “you twit face” for the first time today. Funnily, I wasn’t offended because it wasn’t actually referring to me (ATM comment above notwithstanding) but to those connectivity phenomena: You Tube, Twitter and Facebook. Of course there’s My Space and Mxit (for teens), endless business orientated networks like Linked In (and my gosh do you regret ever submitting your details on a slow day at the office because that rash moment comes back to bite you in the bum as the e-mails from people you don’t really know clog up your inbox).

No, “you twit face” may in fact be a desirable epithet, a symbol of just how connected you are. Just how needy you are if you ask me. And I know you ARE asking me. Why do I say this need to be connected is a sign of neediness? Well let’s take ourselves back to previous eras. Starting with smoke signals and moving, slowly but with increasing speed, through semaphore, morse code, telegrams, telephones, telexes, faxes and e-mail to cellphones, turnaround time from the sending of the message to the expectation of a response has become ever shorter. Now we get really ticked off if we send an e-mail and it isn’t answered in minutes!

Reading Austen today is a lesson in stupefaction. Not that Elizabeth Bennet could see anything in Mr Darcy but that the rhythm of their communication was so slow. Letters would have been delivered by carriage – and took days, if not weeks, to reach their destination. How quaint. No tossing off two or three lines of poor grammar and spelling would do for Elizabeth – her education and breeding had to shine through her letters as proof that she was a woman of substance and worth. It would also reveal her class position – critical in a time when marriage between classes was rare.

No, Elizabeth had to choose her words carefully, not only because she did not have our luxury of an e-mail recall (though if it’s been read I don’t quite see the point of taking it back!) but because they had to count. They were like well chosen jewels – her future might rest on how they were appraised.

But not only did Liz, as we’d call in her in our less formal times, pick her words well but she’d be unwearied! She had to be. The idea that she couldn’t just contact Darcy on a whim, to chat, babble inanely if that was her wont, or invite him over for a drink, meant that she had to bide her time, soothe her fears and anxieties (does he love me or not?) on her own and learn the art of delayed gratification. I don’t mean to idealise those times but I do think there’s something to be said for self control and discipline (perhaps even a little bondage). 

In contemporary times we’ve lost the art of patience – we want it and we want it now. Oh I’m as guilty of this as anyone – I make cell calls when I walk between my office and car (it’s a two minute walk) and they’re often just to say something really ordinary which can actually wait. Why don’t I wait? Well that’s a topic for another blog, but I am working on being ok with forbearance, silence and serenity. Just not yet.