3:6

There comes a time in every process that brings a malaise. An intellectual and emotional doldrums will wash over you and begin to sap your strength and undermine your resolve. This is an inevitable step, and try as one might, it can’t be avoided. Many philosophers and snake-oil salesmen have trumpeted a cure, and thousands of psychologists, counselors and charlatans have made their fortune trying to help victims of this insidious process.

But like many things, this period lessens and passes if one has patience and remains focused — not on overcoming the barrier but on outlasting it. Then the possibility of success can be anticipated.

This is where the man found himself. Mesmerized by the lives moving and flowing around him and combatting the despair that his vigil would not bear fruit. And so, as a result, he lifted his eyes to the sky, blinking in the rays of the afternoon sun, and tried to refocus his mind and reacquire that peaceful state of mind so necessary for a watcher. And so, as a result, he missed the cab that pulled up and disgorged its two passengers. And he missed them slipping up the front steps and into one of the doorways that had, for so many hours, been the centre of his attention.

As his gaze left the bright sky, the man rubbed his eyes with the back of his knuckles, pressed the heels of his hands to his temples and blinked at the taillights of the departing taxi. And he resumed his vigil, taking in once more the life of the street and watching.