We have always been aware of the wait for life-changing messages, whether it be the time it takes to receive a text message from your love, for a soldier’s family to understand news from the front, or for a space probe to deliver data in the far reaches of the solar program. In this publication in praise of wait situations, award-winning author Jason Farman passionately argues that the delay between call and answer has always been an important part of the message.

Journeying backward from our current era of Tweets and text messages, Farman shows how societies been employed by to eliminate waiting in communication and exactly how they possess interpreted those moments’ meanings. Exploring seven eras and items of waiting-including pneumatic mail tubes in New York, Elizabethan polish seals, and Aboriginal Australian message sticks-Farman gives a new mindset for waiting. In a rebuttal to the demand for quick communication, Farman makes a robust case for why good stuff can come to those that wait.