The Observer's Luxury

I think a false sense of patience can come about through detachment, in that you're there observing from an above or outside perspective, not really participating fully in the experiences that are happening.

Like being at the field, perhaps a bystander, that's not playing on the field. You see the tackles, collisions, and exhaustion painted across players' faces, but your heart rate remains steady, as well as your breathing stays calm.

You might even admire from afar the patience of a quarterback waiting for the perfect moment to throw.

The main reasoning behind a "false sense of patience" is on not actually experiencing the experience.

When you're removed from the visceral reality of what's unfolding, patience becomes a lot easier, almost artificial.

Patience Without Cost

Albeit it may seem like genuine composure, there's a huge difference between seeing someone else get punched versus experiencing yourself getting punched.

The observer sees the impact, maybe even winces in sympathy, but they don't feel the shock that reverberates through your skull, the way your vision blurs momentarily and the metallic taste that floods your mouth.

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The knockout effect, the jittering of your nervous system trying to recalibrate, and also the way time seems to stretch and compress simultaneously. Because your mind scrambling to make sense of what just happened while your body deals with the immediate aftermath.

These can be quite hard to convey to someone who's only witnessed such from a distance, who's only known it through screens or stories.

You can be very patient to not react or give a response when observing someone else's crisis unfold, even if this said person is known remotely.

From your safe distance, you might think, "They should just walk away," or "Why don't they just ignore it?"

Inherent Survival Mechanism

If I wonder just a bit on what brings about detachment from lived experience and the ensuing false sense of patience, a whole association with trauma responses runs through my mind.

I think the way we sometimes float above our own pain, watching ourselves suffer as if we're observing a character in a film is really much of a survival mechanism born from this inherent ability to step outside ourselves when reality becomes too much to bear.

You know in some movies when a loud explosion occurs then you hear this tinnitus sound indicating a concussion or temporary hearing loss?

I think that almost perfectly captures this state of detachment, at least experientially for me.

When life hits too hard, something in us just switches off. We become the observer of our own experience rather than the participant. And from this removed vantage point, we can afford to be patient because we're not really feeling anything for that matter.

Life As Usual

However, what strikes me as particularly insidious about this false patience is that it can become a habit that morphs into a default way of engaging with the world.

I understand that the person still caught in the explosion, hearing that proverbial ringing in their ears and trying to orient themselves back again could do well with this counterfeit version, temporarily.

It's akin to limiting the impact of overwhelming emotional or physical pain.

But then, after all the initial shock and immediate danger have passed, they will need the kind of patience that comes from fully acknowledging the difficulty of their situation coupled with understanding that healing takes time and that some wounds can't be rushed.

Real patience, it seems to me, requires presence. In that, to be fully in our experience, feeling the full weight of whatever we're enduring, and to choose to endure it anyway is actually the most direct and enduring route that would solve the core issue of healing and growth on a fundamental level.

False patience is a luxury of distance, whereas true patience is a discipline of proximity.


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