'The Greatest Remedy'

Kafka somewhere says that impatience is a form of laziness. I would add that it’s also a form of egotism, a presumption that our clocks ought to govern the world. We’re likely born impatient, ever awaiting the next feeding. When young, we mistake patience for acquiescence, a shameful surrender. Only later do we reluctantly accept, for instance, pain as an occasional inevitability. In short, that’s life. Dr. Johnson, who suffered a Merck Manual of physical and emotional disorders, understood. In The Rambler of July 7, 1750 he writes: “The great remedy which heaven has put in our hands is patience, by which, though we cannot lessen the torments of the body, we can in a great measure preserve the peace of the mind, and shall suffer only the natural and genuine force of an evil, without heightening its acrimony, or prolonging its effects.” 

Much consolation in those words. Kay Ryan at the conclusion of her poem “Patience” (Say Uncle, 2000), makes a similar point:

 

“Patience is

wider than one

once envisioned,

with ribbons

of rivers

and distant

ranges and

tasks undertaken

and finished

with modest

relish by

natives in their

native dress.

Who would

have guessed

it possible

that waiting

is sustainable—

a place with

its own harvests.

Or that in

time's fullness

the diamonds

of patience

couldn't be

distinguished

from the genuine

in brilliance

or hardness.”

 

Patience doesn’t make the pain go away, but with time and practice it can’t “be / distinguished/ from the genuine.” It’s also cheaper and less likely to result in addiction. Another man who knew sickness and pain throughout his life was Montaigne who, in his essay “Children and Fathers,” recalled that Pericles wore amulets to assuage his illness. Montaigne calls them “vain things” and continues:

 

“I do not say that I may not be carried away someday by that ridiculous notion of committing my life and my health to the mercy and government of the doctors. I may fall into such a madness; I cannot answer for my future firmness. But then, too, if someone inquires of me how I am, I can say to him, like Pericles, ‘You may judge by this,’ showing my hand filled with six drams of opiate. It will be a very evident sign of a violent sickness. My judgment will be extraordinarily unhinged. If impatience and fear win this victory over me, people may infer from it a very fierce fever in my soul.”

 

[The Montaigne passage is from the translation of The Complete Essays of Montaigne by Donald Frame (Stanford University Press, 1957).]