How many times have I told one of my children to be patient? Sitting in the amphitheater waiting for a performance of Pet Shenanigans at Busch Garden, “Be patient.” Frustrated with noise coming from the harp, “Patience (and practice).” Watching some idiot turn right from the left-most lane and causing an accident, “He should have been….” My daughter fills in “Patient.”
I was wrong. Okay, I was partly wrong, which is the same thing. I was wrong. Patience is pointless.
In the Aeneid, Nisus asks Euraylus, “[D]o the gods light this fire in our hearts or does each man’s mad desire become his god?” (“Dine hunc ardorem mentibus addunt, Euryale, an sua cuique deus fit dira cupido?”) The translator Robert Fagels chooses “mad.” Another translator, A.S. Kline, opts for “fatal desire,” which brings to mind Macbeth’s naming of the imaginary dagger as a “fatal vision.” Mandelbaum calls it “relentless longing.” Mad, fatal, and relentless. This particular form of desire is out of the usual—either the gods arouse the passion, or madness begets a monstrous bloom.
Look, desire gets a bad rap. How many hew to the Buddhist credo that desire causes suffering? Well, of course, it does. But, and we forget this, the first of the Four Noble Truths is that suffering (dukkha) exists. Buddha makes the leap into locating the cause of suffering—all dukkha—as the incessant craving of human existence. Let’s add incessant to mad, fatal, and relentless. Okay, to be clear, incessant is my addition.
And, for those of you who are following along, I have praised suffering in short pieces about sailing, swimming, and writing. Suffering is the base. What you build is your choice. But, what you build reflects your desire. Anything you make requires effort, and almost any effort brings at least a modicum of suffering. Sometimes more. Much more.
There are times that patience is more like avoidance, more like acquiescence. Other times, it is the acceptance of the long slog ahead. I cannot finish writing a 300 page novel until I write one word—then another, and another. I patiently work. Let me rephrase, “I diligently, doggedly, and impatiently work.” Even when the words turn to mud, I get into the mud.
Yes, there is the petty form of impatience—tapping one’s foot while waiting in line for the Keurig at work, riding the bumper of the car ahead of yours at 85 mph—but the drive to get from Point A to Point B, from Ignorance to Understanding requires a kind of impatience. I will not wait.
Perhaps because I have been too patient, too distracted by every other thing—that job, that relationship, that dream—I feel the pang of impatience more sharply than ever. At some point, everything must give way to one thing, and then one must move with absolute impatience toward that goal. Is this a “mad desire,” some self-made idol? I am patient with myself, and with my all too obvious flaws, and allow myself this furious impatience.
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