Hold on : the life, science, and art of waiting / Peter Toohey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Toohey, Peter, 1951- author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Waiting (Philosophy).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvii, 300 pages) : illustrations

Other Title:

Life, science, and art of waiting

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Oxford University Press, [2020]

Summary:

What do you do when you're not asleep and when you're not eating? You're most likely waiting - to finish work, to get home, to finish your chores. This book is not really about how to manage all that waiting, it's a book describing how many people experience waiting. Waiting, which is sculpted by the passing of time, is an experience just as much as it is a situation. In this book I'll be focusing on the experience, on how it feels to wait. This experience can encompass such things as hesitation and curiosity, dithering and procrastination, hunting and being hunted, fearing and being feared, dread and illness, courting and parenting, anticipation and excitement, listening to and even performing music, being religious, being happy or unhappy, being bored and being boring, doing business and making decisions (all of which I'll discuss).

Contents:

Prologue: "Go on Taking My Tablets"

A PORTRAIT

1. "Everyone Is Just Waiting": Three Versions of the Experience of Waiting

2. Alan Rabinowitz and the Jaguar: Are Some Brains Better at Waiting than Others?

PAIRS

3. Hall Porter Senf's Wife Is in Labor: Childbirth, Friendship, Marriage, and Waiting

4. Happiness-​Is It Just a Matter of Waiting to Meet Your Double? A Chapter on the Life and the Lore of Waiting and Fulfillment

THE PAUSE

5. Miles Davis Breaks for a Smoke: The Power and the Pleasure in Pausing

6. Dithering: A Chapter on the Strategic Advantages of Indecisive Waiting

DEATH, RELIGION, AND DREAD

7. Heaven Can Wait: That Empty Chair, Waiting, and the Beyond

8. "The Littler Waiting Room": Can You Make the Best of Dread-​and of Waiting for Approaching Death?

Epilogue: One-​Two-​Three: A Better Description for Waiting?

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2020.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-008363-8

0-19-008364-6

0-19-008362-X