In Nordic whiteouts, a stamina for waiting

Описание: After the blizzard warning, I parked my bike in the storage room. To get around, I had to go to the tram stop and because of the heavy snow, the tram was delayed for a long time. It was so cold I could barely bring myself to expose my hands to the air. Even taking out my phone and unlocking the screen felt like a kind of torture. And in that wait about fifteen minutes longer than expected，I realized: my tolerance for waiting is more limited than I imagined.

Waiting isn’t what it used to be. Now it’s easier than ever to escape the boredom of it. Almost every spare second, every little pocket of time, can be stuffed full with a phone. Using it to step out of the reality of waiting feels genuinely good so good that when it quietly starts devouring you, you don’t even notice.

Milan Kundera once described speed as “a kind of ecstasy bestowed on human beings by the technical revolution.” His judgment about the pleasure of speed isn’t without reason. Speed is often seen as progress—as a gift that helps us eliminate the curse of “wasting time.” But perhaps he and perhaps we didn’t foresee how quickly speed would raise everyone’s expectations. When everything moves so fast, I become this impatient.

Our internet connections get faster, our patience gets worse. People abandon “too slow” videos even more quickly. Or maybe it’s this: once you’ve grown used to speed, nothing is harder to endure than the absence of it.

Cycling in the snow makes me afraid of speed and it also makes me calmer about waiting. After snow, everything looks clean. Through the lens, the sky becomes so clear, so transparent. Snow seems to force everyone into waiting. Drivers who fear sliding past the crosswalk prepare themselves to wait in advance. Bus drivers deliberately give an extra minute—out of generosity—to passengers who are cautious yet anxious, hurrying to catch up. Behind the snowplow, the long line of cars doesn’t complain at all.