63. THE VALUE OF PATIENCE - Responses to Waiting
It has been a week of waiting.
As an American citizen, as well as human being living on a planet largely dominated by the influence of American politics, I approached last Tuesday’s election with some trepidation. Another four years of Donald Trump’s leadership seems catastrophic to all that is decent, yet a Biden victory, while something to cheer for, merely takes us back to the more muted awfulness that existed before Trump bulldozed into the Whitehouse. Still, election cycles are a nervous thing: poll after poll shows us that what we say publicly to pollsters bears little resemblance to reality, with many people ashamed to admit in public what they are voting for in the ballot box. While Trump’s awfulness may seem self-evident to some of us (those concerned with the environment, his response to this pandemic, systemic structural racism and LGBTQ+ equality, basic standards of epistemology...to name but a few), for those who support him these black marks against his character and record aren’t even issues of concern. It is not until the votes are counted in an election that we see where public opinion really is (and even then, we see only the opinion of the public who voted). So I was nervous about discovering America to be far less kind than I hoped it to be and for the world to be plunged into four more years of this self-destructive circus.
But as I write this now it is Friday and still no result. Joe Biden has marginally increased his possible lead in Pennsylvania and Georgia but still nothing is confirmed. Meanwhile the President speaks of election fraud and lawsuits. His supporters threaten the count in several battleground states. Comedian Bill Maher’s consistent worry since 2016, dismissed by every Democrat he has interviewed on his weekly television show, weighs heavily on my mind: “and what if he doesn’t leave?”
I have waited for the result, and continue to wait. And even when it comes - and it is most likely right now the decision will be in Biden’s favour - there will be still more waiting. The inevitable Trump temper-tantrums. The possible obstacle of time-consuming law suits. The theoretical mutiny of the electoral college voting against the people’s wishes. Simple refusal to leave the Oval Office and a Trump coup supported by his gun-toting conspiracy-peddling followers who truly believe the man is there to save us all from Satan.
I will be waiting until Inauguration Day and the image of Trump flying off somewhere far from Washington before I can fully believe the nightmare to be over. And perhaps then too, there will still be more waiting. Waiting for what Trumpism mutates into (as the Tea Party mutated before it). The possibility of an emerging third party in an already divided country led by a vengeful Don Jr or Ivanka? A Trump dynasty? The monster that simply won’t die…
At the same time as we wait for America to decide, the UK enters into its second national lockdown as a result of rising cases of COVID 19. A four week period of prolonged waiting for many. Waiting to see if it will be worth the mental and economic sacrifice? Waiting to see if the lockdown worked? Waiting to see if the predictions of scientists and unions prove to be true and keeping the schools open during this time was a mistake. Waiting to see if that mistake is a deadly one for teachers or students. Waiting to see if it is a mistake which extends the lockdown further. Waiting to see if we will still be locked down at Christmas and then, for others, waiting for Christmas itself and waiting to see if people act as stupidly around this holiday as they did at the end of the last lockdown. Pretending everything is over even when nothing has actually changed. The virus still as rampant. The potential for death just as high but unable to adapt - as evolutionary history tells us we must - and be festive a little differently this December, we engage in old, dangerous, behaviours…
Because Covid has been the ultimate waiting game. Waiting for a vaccine. Waiting for a test result. Waiting to see if we will get it and, if we do, waiting to see how it develops and if we’ll survive. Waiting for our period of self-isolation to end. Waiting to be able to do all the things we miss again. Waiting for our businesses to come back, our hobbies, our livelihoods. Waiting to see our families and friends without restrictions. Waiting for that operation that was cancelled, that check up. Waiting to see what the real “new normal” will look like. Not the false one we rushed into production during the summer, but the real one that will come when we pass through the denial stage of this grief and reach acceptance of what life with Covid really means for us all. Waiting for the world to see sense on things like universal basic income, universal free healthcare, flexible working, the separation of school and education…
Always waiting.
But I am very used to waiting. If you have read my book, Authentic Democracy, you would know that the anarchism I advocate for is one I concede is unlikely to be realised in my own lifetime. I will die still waiting for legitimate politics to exist and likely never experience life under the authentic democracy I argue for. I doubt even the next generation will. To get there is a long, gradual process of small progressions building slowly like a snowball. A waiting game. Because that’s the only way change ever comes. Active waiting, not passive, but waiting nonetheless. We still have to do our part and do what’s right. I can’t just wait out four years of the Trump presidency, I have to vote him out too. I can’t just wait for the coronavirus to vanish without also doing my part and stopping it’s spread as we wait for a vaccine. And I can’t just wait for social change without advocating for it and participating in the movements which inch us ever closer.
But I can only vote once.
My mask, my social distancing, my endlessly washed hands, they only protect so much.
And every protest I attend, article or book I write, will only ever have a limited impact.
For the real change to emerge I have to wait for everyone else to catch on. For us all to do our billions of tiny parts that will one day add up to something greater than the whole.
Following the shocking death of my boss, I have been reading this week about grief too. Another thing which takes time. I mourned his passing as we returned to work this week without him, but also mourned my parents who, like him, died too young. After all these years I am still waiting for that grief to pass, and it does, some days. Other days it returns. But as with those other waitings listed above, there are active things you can do to mourn - share stories, cry, make art, memorialise, etc. Things which make the time pass more productively. But ultimately it comes down to time. Waiting for that day when you realise you have at last accepted the loss and an ongoing existence without them.
So in this week of waiting - a week placed amidst a lifetime of waiting - my philosophy is simple. I have only two choices:
Recognise that waiting is an essential part of life and by its nature can’t be rushed. Accept that these things take time and make peace with the uncertainty. So long as I have done my bit, I must let the cards fall where they may and wait patiently until they do.
Or
2. Get frustrated by the uncertainty and the waiting. Constantly check my phone and social media for updates and alerts. Overreact to any small movement in one direction or the other. Waste the gift of time such waiting brings - time for contemplation, reflection, or any other activity - and tread endless water fretting about outcomes over which I have no more control, all the while getting nowhere closer to my desired destination and missing out on the luxury of time the waiting has brought me.
That 1 is preferable and more reasonable than 2 is self-evident.
So why do I keep refreshing my phone?
Is it because humans are inherently irrational animals?
Perhaps, one day we will evolve into something better. Until then though, we wait…
Author: DaN McKee
Buy my book - AUTHENTIC DEMOCRACY: An Ethical Justification of Anarchism - HERE
(Dept of Good Timing: just as I finished writing this, they announced Biden had won. Just goes to show what happens when you make peace with waiting.)