When we observe people from outside, when we have the time and the patience to do that, under the lens of an imaginary microscope, the human swarm has a thought-provoking movement, incomparably more vigorous that that of the natural dynamic. We get used to thinking of humans as the centre of activity, as tireless actors. Yet when we observe human nature from closer up, when we analyse our own experiences or those of others, we find that between the actions, during the actions, superimposed on the actions, waiting constitutes an incredibly large part of our existence.

Waiting, as a human attitude, has two main parameters: the affective and the emotive. Caused by the former or the latter, the phenomenon develops on a huge scale, in many different ways. Wise waiting or worried waiting, waiting hopeful or hopeless, calm or anxious, waiting enables today’s or tomorrow’s existence, day after day, as a form of repeated waiting. Numerous examples, whether taken from literature or life, facilitate our enumeration of multifaceted instances of waiting.

A mental test, the knowledge of waiting, strengthens an individual. Waiting is an attitude towards time and shows us the real value of each second experienced. As we are impatient we create tools for measuring and shortening the wait. From the hourglass to the computer they mercilessly regulate our lives. Imposed or voluntary, individual or collective, waiting as procrastination or a wait full of emotion, it forges our character. Our path is cluttered with waits. We live from one to the next. Waiting becomes an impelling state, a lesson to be learnt ...