Here I reproduce, my Edit Page Speaking Tree article published in The Times of India in October 2010 and available on my page on the Speaking Tree portal.
In A Passage to India, E
M Forster makes an interesting comment about an elderly character Mrs Moore and
her understanding of life stating that she had learnt that life never gives us
what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate Adventures do occur,
but not punctually. To be punctual is variously described as arriving or
happening at the arranged time or as the state of being in time In another
context, punctuality could imply the arrival of the moment of truth at an hour
arranged, as it were, between the individual and the moment of truth.
Since that kind of power to either precipitate or postpone one's moment of truth is not granted to human beings, we find that most human virtues and wisdom are based upon the premise that human beings must learn to negotiate with the schism between what they think to be opportune time and what the pace of time considers opportune for them The virtues of patience, detachment, hope, endurance and acceptance are all meant to communicate how human nature, wisdom, and philosophy have all been geared to the belief that the moment of truth has an uncharted course and one has no control over it.
Since that kind of power to either precipitate or postpone one's moment of truth is not granted to human beings, we find that most human virtues and wisdom are based upon the premise that human beings must learn to negotiate with the schism between what they think to be opportune time and what the pace of time considers opportune for them The virtues of patience, detachment, hope, endurance and acceptance are all meant to communicate how human nature, wisdom, and philosophy have all been geared to the belief that the moment of truth has an uncharted course and one has no control over it.

Shakespeare's Hamlet learns the same lesson after going through the learning process in life: ''We defy augury; there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; readiness is all'' However, beyond the half-pessimism of Mrs Moore, half because it believes that adventures do occur, and half-optimism of Hamlet, the inclination of a common experience is more towards the belief that life.does not keep pace with our expectations and more often than not remains stingy in distributing its bounties despite our endeavours to be there in time.
The matter-of-fact but dignified statement of Vladimir in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot underlines for us a very business-like approach to life's appointments conveying that it is life itself that is refusing to respond to us: 'We have kept our appointment and that's an end to that We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment How many people can boast as much?' And the rather prompt reply of Estragon stating 'Billion' even enlarges the scope to express simmering discontent of the commoners.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget Eliot
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There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
Appointments are usually kept in absentia with events that you do not approve of or with people you do not desire. Your absence does not negate your presence. It actually enhances it. Ce'st la vie.