Urgent patience and radical ruptures

I read this piece this morning, by Edicio Dela Torre: « The noun, the driving force, is ”impatience.” So many changes cry out to be done, and sooner rather than later. That is the spirit of the slogan from the 70s, “Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa?” Or in more contemporary terms: “Now na!”

But if we want a real world strategy for change, our impatience needs to be modified by the adjective “patient.” Sheer will cannot overcome the truth that many changes can’t be rushed and forced. Or if forced will do a lot of harm, even if unintended. And will not be sustained. »

 [http://www.ediciodelatorre.com/leadership/roro-and-patient-impatience/]

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Part of me would like to believe that; the other half says what kind of patience and who are we waiting for, if not ourselves? Change also happens through radical rupture (as a friend pointed out to me once), which is the only kind of change that matters when time presses hard on us all and the world becomes, once more, malleable to hope. What matters is what comes after, when the heat of public anger bubbles over and is given vision, substance, and direction. Not least by those who have treasured the lessons of the past.

The future remains radically open, susceptible neither to force nor easy prediction. Patient rebuilding comes after. Many of us are missing that opportunity again.

« Patient impatience ». There is also urgent patience, even a revolutionary impatience:

“an active waiting, an urgent patience, an endurance and a perseverance that are the opposite of passive waiting for a miracle” (Bensaid)