The People vs. the State of Presence (or “Let’s create Gegenwart Day!”)
Do you have any notion of how much energy you spend on waiting? Not only time, but also energy on managing your frustration and anger, energy on managing the interruptions in your flow, energy to adjust your pace, energy on managing waiting related collateral, energy on developing secondary protocols – just in case, reshuffling your cash flow, and so on and so forth – the list is endless!
And all because THEY and you (!) are just fine letting others wait. Ever sent out a WhatsApp message and waited and waited for a response? Ever waited for an email to be answered? A payment not arriving that was promised? Yes, the list is endless!
And there’s much more!
Waiting for the cold to go away, waiting for the weekend, waiting for your lover to come, waiting for your 3rd eye to open, waiting for a better handicap, waiting for that desperately desired breakthrough, waiting for liberation, waiting to find Prince Charming, waiting for the social event to begin and then waiting for it to be over, waiting for God to hear your prayer… my goodness, this list IS endless, isn’t it?!
And how do we experience the state of waiting? Exactly, it sucks, sometimes more, sometimes less. But it sucks.
You live on a planet where by default delivery is almost always delayed. And if not, well then they call it premature ejac… you know what. And if you are always sharp on time, you are increasingly perceived as weird; people get uncomfortable around you. So better join in and also be late, so nobody takes offense.
Is there a cure?
There isn’t. But there is a place where all that is none of your business any longer: the present moment. The word presence or present moment in the German language is “Gegenwart” and consists of two syllables: “gegen” and “wart”. “Gegen” means versus, opposed to, against; and “wart” comes from the verb “warten” which means waiting. So “Gegenwart” means “opposed to waiting” or “against waiting”. In the word “Gegenwart” is not only contained the labelling of the Here and Now, but also the solution. Whoever came up with that word was a genius. In a state of not-waiting, we are in the Gegenwart, in the present moment. Many of you have learned from Eckhart Tolle a lot about the Here and Now, so I don’t need to repeat that here.
What do we need to give up to step into executing stopping to wait and stopping to make others wait?
Our complacency, our laziness, our drama, our righteousness, our resignation and resistance. You know why so many people love drugs? Because drugs give you the Gegenwart without you needing to give up anything! You get a free ride. Temporarily and for a high price of course. By high price, I don’t mean money – I mean your life.
Why don’t we gather ourselves and start a Gegenwart Day? We just had Earth Day and there are all kinds of “Days”. One day when nobody is waiting for anything and nobody is making any other wait! Imagine! The drug lords would hate that day. And we would love it!
With love, Marc