Posted: 7/13/2025
There’s a special kind of soul-warping purgatory in standing in a line—especially when it’s supposed to be for something joyous. A farmer’s market. A food truck. Art on the Square. You’re there for the joy of it, supposedly. And yet—you're caged. Upright. Smiling. Performing a quiet patience that isn’t patience at all. It's suppression.
You're not alone, but you’re not with anyone either. You're part of a flow but frozen. You're present, but disengaged. The line becomes a ritual of suspended desire, where motion is not yours. It’s a test of docility disguised as a cultural norm.
What’s even stranger is how we behave in lines. Our eyes dodge. Our bodies angle away. Our mouths close unless we’re with someone safe. We’re all here, in public, waiting to do something human—and yet nothing could feel less human.
I don’t hate lines because I’m impatient. I hate them because they flatten the moment. They reduce aliveness to choreography. They make us act like patient robots programmed for reward.
And maybe that’s the most jarring thing—when even joy gets processed in single file.