When we’re waiting for something, waiting is dying. Patience doesn’t want anything. It’s desireless, a divine indifference. We’re invited to learn, develop and purify our patience through a series of ups and downs.
If I am waiting for someone to say or do something so that I can be happy, then I inhabit a purgatorial state. Waiting is dying.
We are born to die. We die as we live. Today, then, describes our death. Some men are blown out like candles. Others convulse and cry out. A few depart lucid and lit.
Death is the falling away of everything we don’t need—our traditions, beliefs, habits, hopes, memories, worries, fears, resentments, five-year plans, medications, opinions, cultural associations, club memberships, loyalties, animosities, calculations, the voice in the head that interprets, judges, discriminates, rejects, invites and analyzes.
This falling away is already happening—as I write this, as you read it.
Number three? Pills and procedures.
Men's Work 