Original
Penelope weaves her cloth waiting for Odysseus, Vladimir and Estragon mooch about waiting for Godot and each and every one of us has something to wait: the arrival of a bus, a phone call that fails to come, the kettle to boil. But do we really understand the meaning of our impatient gestures? Do we ever ask ourselves what is the relationship between time and waiting? Is there an ethics, or maybe even an art of waiting? Do the internet, the online shopping and the social media really mean that nowadays, waiting has come to an end?
On Waiting [Despre așteptare] explores such and similar questions. Bringing into discussion some fascinating examples, from the philosopher Henri Bergson’s reflections around a sugar lump to paintings of Ferdinand Hodler and texts by Rainer Maria Rilke, Elizabeth Bishop and Raymond Carver, Harold Schweizer analyzes from multiple angles this phenomenon which, despite being so present, is so often neglected. From despair to hope, passing through boredom and absurd, the author puts forward a philosophy of waiting, understanding it not just as a simple time passage that one has to cross, but as a condition of being human.
