The reason I want to be able to teleport is that I don't like

In the words of Alan Schaaf: “The reason I want to be able to teleport is that I don't like waiting around. It's one of my pet peeves. I also don't like traveling, because I don't like sitting on a plane for six hours, doing nothing, essentially wasting time. You know what would be awesome? Bam, I'm in New York.” At first, these words may appear as a playful wish, the idle dream of instant travel. Yet beneath them lies the profound yearning of the human soul: the desire to conquer time, to banish waste, and to move swiftly toward purpose. For since the dawn of man, mortals have sought to shorten the distance between longing and attainment.

To wait is to be caught between desire and fulfillment, between the dream and its realization. The ancients feared wasted time above all things, for they knew that life is but a brief flicker in the vastness of eternity. Seneca wrote that “it is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it.” Schaaf’s words echo this same truth: that hours spent in idleness, in empty transit, in the prison of delay, weigh heavily upon the spirit. Thus, his wish for teleportation is not only about movement of the body, but about liberation of the soul from the chains of lost hours.

Consider the story of Alexander the Great, whose armies marched tirelessly across continents. Though his conquests were vast, his greatest frustration was the slowness of travel, the endless days of crossing deserts and rivers before glory could be seized. Imagine how his spirit would have soared had he possessed such a power as Schaaf dreams of—a single step carrying him from Macedonia to Babylon, from Greece to India. His longing was the same as ours: to bend space and time to the will of human purpose.

But Schaaf also reveals another truth when he calls waiting his pet peeve. For the great enemy of progress is not merely the passage of hours, but the wasting of them. Time that could be spent creating, building, or loving is instead consumed by inertia. To sit upon a plane for six hours, doing nothing, is to feel life slipping through one’s hands like sand. In this, he gives voice to the universal frustration of all who wish to live fully: the agony of squandered moments.

Yet we must ask: is time ever truly wasted, or is it the eye of the beholder that transforms waiting into emptiness? The Stoics taught that even in delay one may learn patience, reflection, and discipline. Michelangelo, trapped for months awaiting marble from the quarries of Carrara, sketched endlessly, turning his delay into preparation for greatness. Where others saw boredom, he found mastery. Thus, while teleportation may never be ours, the mastery of time is—if we learn to transform waiting into growth.

The lesson, then, is not only that life is short, but that every moment must be claimed with intention. Do not let waiting be wasted. If the road is long, fill it with learning. If the journey is slow, let it be a temple of thought. If you must sit still, let your mind move. This is the wisdom that transmutes idle hours into gold, and turns delays into opportunities. The true power of teleportation lies not in machines but in the mind that can carry itself anywhere, even when the body cannot.

In practice, prepare for waiting as you would prepare for battle. Carry with you a book, a thought to ponder, a skill to practice. Turn the plane seat into a school, the long line into a sanctuary of reflection, the delay into a forge of patience. And when haste is possible, do not delay—move boldly, seize the day, and waste nothing. For while we cannot yet say, “Bam, I am in New York,” we can say, “Bam, I am present, awake, alive in this very moment.”

Therefore, hear this teaching: time is the most precious gift. To dream of teleportation is to dream of freedom from waste, but the greater power lies already within us—the ability to honor each hour, to bend waiting into wisdom, to transform delay into growth. Guard your minutes as a warrior guards his shield, for once lost they return no more. And whether you travel slowly or swiftly, let every step be filled with purpose, until your life itself becomes a journey worthy of eternity.