If you have read much of what I have had to say over the past year or three, thei should be fairly obvious. I hate waiting. I leap headlong into the fray before analyzing my opponent's position. I leap before I look. I count my chickens before they hatch. My answer to the challenges that present themselves to me is not the careful assesment of the options, but to cast myself headlong into the maelstrom, and improvise when I open a door and find a wall.

Patience is a virtue, though, and I, from my very youth, have desired to be a virtuous man. And so I try, in spite of the nonstandard chemistry that courses through my nervous system, to cultivate patience, to some degree of success. My work with children has helped me to develop an understanding for people learning things for the first time. If I am teaching someone something entirely new to them, I can keep hammering away at it until they understand, as long as they appear to be making an effort.

My vocation (saving the world) has done a great deal in teaching me persistence, which is a close relation to patience. It has been said of me, by numerous people (some of whom you would know by name) that no one beats a dead horse back to life quite as effectively as me. I am unwilling to let go of an issue, even if it appears hopeless, when I am convinced that it is fair, moral, and for the benefit of all. I have pummelled so many figurative brick walls into powder, using nothing but my forehead, that I could qualify for a licence for demolitions in most countries.

And yet I am unsatisfied with my progress.

I am impatient with my level of patience. It is a stereotype, I know, but I want a zenlike level of patience, and I WANT IT RIGHT NOW.

Please excuse the outburst.

Is there a shortcut? Do you know a way to get there from here without having to go around the mountain? If you do, you are, unfortunately, a very great fool indeed. It doesn't exist. Like many of these things that we want in life, patience is not a state we acheive, but a journey upon which we embark. If I may illustrate, ask yourself how long you are willing to wait for a promotion at your job. How long are you willing to wait for friend to come down the stairs and go to a show with you? How long are you willing to wait for the staff at your favourite Tandouri resteraunt to bring your Rogan Josh?

Now imagine the following. You are recently re-employed after a long period of unemployment. You have lived a spartan lifestyle for almost a year, and now are finally generating an income. Re-ask the questions above. Now change the scenario again. You are recently returned from war. And another change; The war is over, but it was in your nation.

Patience is subjective, and there are things for which I will never have patience, such as deliberate cruelty, and some things for which I expect to have very little patience. There are also things for which I am willing to wait a lifetime, or beyond my own life. I don't, for example, expect to see the world out of danger. I am satisfied to believe that I am doing what I can, and that another will finish the job after I have left.

So, why discuss patience? Where am I going with this?

Good question. I suppose I could blame it on the hours again. I am still going at the same rate I was in the infamous "101 Days" entry. I don't think that is the reason, though. Perhaps this is the begining of my opening up. Perhaps I am impatient to draw back the curtain.

Ask me again tomorrow.