You're not "waiting" in that room, you're occupying space. There's a difference. Waiting implies a purpose, a goal, but you're just sitting there a plastic chair until someone calls your name. It's a stagnant state, Nell. Stop calling it waiting. It makes it sound active. It's actually pathetic.
It’s such an exhausting way to look at the world, Rafe, as if you have to deconstruct every mundane second into its physics to prove you're some sort of grand architect of pure intention. If I'm sitting in that drafty office waiting for the clerk to stop looking at his phone, calling it waiting is simply the only word that acknowledges the time is actually passing, whereas your "occupying space" makes it sound like I'm a piece of furniture. You're obsessed with the mechanics of being there, which, frankly, explains why that job at the insurance firm was such a nightmare when the radiator started blowing up and I just wanted to get the paperwork over with. It doesn't matter what label you slap on the chair; I'm still not moving yet.
It's exactly the point. You call it waiting to give yourself some dignity, like your time matters. It's a lie. You're just a physical mass under a leaky radiator. The clerk doesn't care about your "waiting," and neither does the universe. You're just static, Nell. It's fucking entropy. Stop calling it a process. It's delusional.
You really love the nihilism of it, don't you, as if reducing a moment to entropy somehow makes you more profound than the rest of us who just exist. It's a very convenient way to ignore the fact that I'm actually expecting something to happen next, even if that something is just a signature on a form so I can finally go home and forget this conversation. Your insistence on stripping away the dignity of simply sitting in a room is tedious, especially because it requires a level of clinical detachment I honestly don't have the energy for today. It's not delusional to think there's a bit of human intent in a three-hour delay; it's just being a person, even if you find that concept offensive to your physics.
Intent isn't a thing when the clerk is just lazy because he's bored. You think your expectation of a signature makes you the main character of this little drama? It doesn't. You're just projecting a narrative onto a void. It's not "being a person," it's being a passenger who refuses to admit the car is dead. It's fucking pathetic, Nell.
The way you talk as if the world is some cold, mechanical machine that doesn't respond to human presence is frankly exhausting, and it's a remarkably lazy way to avoid acknowledging the basic friction of life we're all forced to live in. If I'm a passenger, then at least I know I'm not going to jump out of the car just because you've decided the engine is stalled out. It's not a narrative, it's just the reality of having to deal with the people and the forms before I can actually move on with my life, which, unlike you, you'd rather drown in your own cynicism than just admit that some things are just slow until they're done. I'm tired of this constant deconstruction of a perfectly normal afternoon.
"Normal" is just a word for people who are too scared to notice the gears. You cling to the friction because it makes you feel like you're going somewhere. You aren't. You're just rubbing against a wall. It's not "dealing with life," it's being an obstacle in a bureaucracy. You're the delay, Nell. It's fucking exhausting.
It is truly remarkable how you can manage to make yourself the victim of a situation you simply aren't involved in, as if my presence in that chair is some personal affront on your sense of the universe. If I'm the delay, it's because I'm the one actually trying to do the work and deal with the messy reality of the process while you stand back and de-construct the architecture. You talk about gears and walls like you've seen the blueprints, but you're really just looking for an excuse to not participate in anything that requires a bit of actual patience. I'm not an obstacle, I'm the person who has to actually get things finished, and if that is exhausting for you, then that's your problem, not mine.
"Getting things finished" is a joke. You tell yourself the paperwork is a mission so you don't have to face how meaningless it actually is. It's not work, it's a repetitive cycle of useless motions. You're moving paper around in a vacuum. You're not participating in anything; you're just part of the noise. It's fucking pathetic.
You're so convinced that there's some grand, hidden truth beneath the surface that you can't stand the fact that most of life is just moving paper and passing time. It's a vacuum to you, but I still have rent to pay for that apartment with the landlord who never answers about the sink, so the "useless motions" are what actually keep the lights on. It's not a mission, it's just a Tuesday, and your refusal to see that without an existential crisis doesn't make the work itself inherently meaningless. You call it pathetic because you can't handle the idea of being ordinary, but you'd rather be a philosopher in the shadows while everyone else is actually getting through the day.
Ordinary isn't a badge, it's a cage. You worship the leaky sink and the rent because they give you a sense of weight. They don't. It's just more stuff you're carrying to the grave. I'm not a philosopher, I'm just the only one pointing out you're complaining about the weight of the chains. It's fucking ridiculous, Nell.
If the chains are so heavy, then at least they keep me from drifting away into whatever void you float in your self-imposed deconstruction. You talk about weight as if it's a burden, but it's the only thing that makes the world feel real when you're busy trying to be a ghost in the room. It's not ridiculous to acknowledge that a leaky sink needs fixing; it's ridiculous to stand there and mock the plumbing because you're too busy being a metaphor. I'm not worshiping anything, I'm just living in the world, and if that world looks like a cage to you, maybe you're the one who can't fit through the door.