Life is a string of unknowns separated by moments of waiting. Everyone is always waiting for something, big or small, important or trivial: waiting for the traffic lights to change; for a phone call; for a table at a popular restaurant; for medical test results; for success or love; for the children to grow up; for retirement; for the last bus.

In an era of instant results and immediate gratification, waiting seems to be universally perceived as tedious and annoying. It is particularly irritating if, for whatever reason, you are deprived of distractions such as smartphones and talking with friends. The line never moves. The clock seems to stop ticking. In waiting, time goes by so slowly that we can almost feel it. We fidget. We fret. We fume. We are frustrated with the wait, feeling that our time is being wasted. Dr Seuss describes “The Waiting Place” as “a most useless place” in his book Oh, the Places You’ll Go! However, Henri Bergson, the famous French philosopher, would disagree. While waiting for a cube of sugar to dissolve in a glass of water, Bergson had an epiphany about the nature of human consciousness, duration and time. For those of us who might only think of calories under similar circumstances, is it possible to turn these mundane moments to our advantage?

Most of you have probably heard of Hayao Miyazaki, the legendary Japanese animator and filmmaker. In his films, there are often scenes devoid of dialogue or action. Sometimes it’s two young sisters waiting at the bus stop for their father to arrive (My Neighbor Totoro). Sometimes it’s a silent train journey of a girl heading deeper into the spirit world with her companions (Spirited Away). Nothing really happens; yet it’s these moments that make Miyazaki’s world feel so real and humane. In one of his interviews, Miyazaki explained, “We have a word for that in Japanese. It’s called ma (間). Emptiness. It’s there intentionally.” He elaborated by clapping several times, “The time in between my clapping is ma. If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it’s just busyness. But if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension.”

The utility of emptiness is best illustrated by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu over 2,500 years ago in Tao Te Ching:

• Thirty spokes connect to the wheel’s hub;
• yet, it is the centre hole that makes it useful.
• Clay is shaped into a vessel;
• yet, it is the emptiness within that makes it useful.
• Doors and windows are cut for a room;
• yet it is the space where there is nothing that makes it useful.
• Therefore, though advantage comes from what is;
• usefulness comes from what is not. ^Note

Just as the centre hole that makes the wheel useful, the emptiness inside the vessel that enables it to hold things, the inner space of a room that renders it liveable, waiting can be a valuable experience. Instead of finding a way to “escape all that waiting and staying” as Dr Seuss urges, we might think of the pockets of time spent waiting as our moments of ma, a respite from the tension and haste of modern life. Instead of reaching for the phone and busying ourselves with texts, email messages, social media updates or whatever amusements, we might just let our mind wander and do nothing. As Winnie the Pooh, the honey-loving bear, says, “Doing nothing often leads to the very best of something.” You can trust this little bear. He is considered the epitome of a Taoist thinker and his wisdom has been compiled by American writer Benjamin Hoff into a book titled The Tao of Pooh.

The value of waiting is all the more relevant in the current coronavirus pandemic. By waiting in quarantine for test results, by waiting in line to receive a vaccination shot, by waiting until it is safe enough to attend large gatherings or visit our favourite places, each of us plays a small but crucial part in weathering this storm together. Waiting can be an exercise of agency and can be experienced in myriad ways that do not necessarily entail negative feelings such as dullness, helplessness or boredom. Rather, even at its worst, waiting comes with an element of hope. And hope springs eternal.