18th January 2022

On your marks, get set, go!.

The preparation, the journey to the point of departure, the physical and spiritual effort required to reach the starting line, the sacrifices needed, these is wholly describable, debatable, apparent. The release, that moment of fulfillment, when all the planning, waiting, expectation, suddenly explodes into delivery, an unloosening, requiring a positive activity, purpose, movement, an uncoiling, can be quantified.

Getting set, is a most alien situation, physically tumultuous, psychologically jittering, presenting an indescribable cessation of movement, lasting an indefinite time. Present but hovering, pulsating in the blocks, a position most unnatural and uncomfortable. To be set literally means to be fixated, ready but inanimate, perched, uncomfortably even painfully leant, a growing knot of compressed energy.

Waiting is ever a most trying situation for the human, we are not designed for patience, our grabby hands and flitting eyes are made for immediate reaction, expeditious but not necessarily well measured. We are genetically armed to diagnose patterns, understand how unrelated issues will lead to unobvious, but predictable consequences, then respond to the resulting happenstances, shifting with the repercussions, balanced athletically, with ease or difficulty, upon the moving platform, overcoming every presented quandary. But do note it is the anticipation that challenges us most blatantly, each repetitive time.

Being on hold, that interminable period between ready and go, is the ultimate physical and emotional test continually set us every day, amidst every proposition, between any action and effect, infected the silence precursing a thunderclap, the interminable gap betwixt trip and the resultant painful landing, any unexplainable suspension in time and space, fates that we endure but cannot elucidate.

Steadfastness can be unbearably painful, for it is beyond control physically, emotionally. We are victims of kismet, perplexed, unfounded, disturbingly wholly suspended.