There is a strange kind of time that belongs to nobody. The few minutes at a red light, the queue at an ATM, the waiting room at a doctor’s clinic, or the ten minutes before a friend finally arrives. Nothing is really happening, and yet we rarely allow ourselves to simply be there. At a red light, my hand often reaches for my phone before I have even registered that I have stopped moving. The light turns red, the phone appears, and suddenly those forty seconds have somewhere to disappear.

But every once in a while, I leave the phone in my pocket. Last week, I noticed a man sitting in an auto beside me, humming to himself, completely out of tune and completely unbothered. In a hospital waiting room, I saw a woman refold the same brochure thrice without paying much heed to it, simply because she needed something to do with her hands.

Everyone appears to have their own small ritual for these moments. Some people check the time repeatedly. Some stare at the door. Some scroll. Some strike up conversations with strangers. Others look around as if a familiar room has suddenly become worth examining.

Waiting does not always feel the same. Five minutes spent waiting for food can go by without notice. Five minutes waiting for someone who is late can feel considerably longer. Five minutes before an interview can stretch even further. The clock is indifferent to all of this. We are not.

Sometimes the discomfort comes from not knowing how long the waiting will last. Sometimes it comes from what is at the other end of the wait. And sometimes, when we are already anxious, the empty space simply gives our thoughts more room than we want them to have. Perhaps that is one reason we reach for our phones so quickly. The interesting part is how automatic the gesture has become. A gap appears, and almost immediately we feel the need to put something inside it.

We have become used to treating spare minutes as opportunities to be productive, entertained or informed. Even waiting can become another task: answer an email, read an article, watch a video, make a list.

The irony is that waiting may be one of the few times when nobody is asking anything of us.

That does not make every queue profound, or every red light an opportunity for self-discovery. Sometimes five minutes really is just five minutes. There is nothing wrong with being bored, and there is nothing particularly virtuous about refusing to look at a screen.

What interests me is what happens when we allow the gap to remain a gap. You might notice the man humming beside you. You might watch someone fold a brochure for no reason. You might remember something you had forgotten. Or you might do absolutely nothing. That last possibility seems increasingly unfamiliar.

Perhaps the value of these small stretches of waiting is not that they make us more productive or even more thoughtful. Perhaps their value lies in the fact that they don’t have to produce anything. The next time the light turns red, I will probably still be tempted to reach for my phone.

But maybe, once in a while, I’ll leave it in my pocket.
The light will change soon enough.

By: Shivika Garg, Student, Goa Institute of Management