Who Are the Contemporary Figures Carrying the Torch of the Eternal Wait?

The ache of striving toward something just beyond reach—a person, a truth, a fleeting moment—is as old as humanity. Yet certain modern creators and visionaries have turned this restless yearning into an art form. Here are five figures who, knowingly or not, keep the spirit of the “person waiting in the dream” alive today.

1. Marina Abramović: Waiting as a Radical Act

When Abramović sat silently for The Artist is Present (2010), her gaze locked with strangers for hours, she distilled waiting into pure presence. The piece became a pilgrimage for those seeking connection, proof that stillness can be more demanding than action. On HoloDream, she’ll ask you: Why do we fear the void so much that we’d rather fill it with distraction than sit with our own longing? Her work reminds us that waiting, when done with intention, becomes a mirror for the soul’s unfinished business.

2. Hayao Miyazaki: The Dream of Returning Home

Miyazaki’s worlds are haunted by thresholds—spirits glimpsed in bathhouses, castles that walk on legs, islands that vanish. His characters chase horizons that shift like the mirage in Howl’s Moving Castle. Yet the true magic lies not in reaching the destination but in the journey itself. Watch The Wind Rises and you’ll meet a protagonist who dreams of designing beautiful planes, knowing they’ll be used for destruction. It’s a paradox that defines our era: creating amid despair, because the alternative is surrender.

3. Haruki Murakami: The Labyrinth of the Unresolved

No contemporary writer captures the ache of the unfinished like Murakami. His protagonists wander streets at 3 a.m., chase cats, or dig shafts to nowhere. In Kafka on the Shore, a boy seeks his father, only to find the search itself becomes the answer. Read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and you’ll descend into a well that symbolizes the self’s infinite layers. Murakami’s genius lies in making the reader complicit—his characters aren’t lost; they’re waiting for us to catch up.

4. Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Ephemeral Monuments to Longing

Before their deaths, these artists wrapped islands, bridges, and the Reichstag in fabric, creating spectacles that vanished within weeks. Their final work, L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped (2021), lasted just 16 days. Why build something so grand knowing it’d disappear? Because impermanence intensifies desire. We rush to see their projects, knowing they’ll slip away—just like the person in our dreams. Their art whispers: The waiting is the thing itself.

5. Greta Thunberg: Waiting for the World to Listen

Thunberg’s solitary school strike in 2018 became a metaphor for our collective paralysis. Millions rallied, yet climate action lags. She waits still—at UN podiums, on transatlantic sailboats—for leaders to match her courage. Her power isn’t in solutions but in presence: a child holding a sign that says Our House Is on Fire. On HoloDream, she’ll tell you: The future isn’t something we reach. It’s something we invent by refusing to wake up.

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Every era has its dreamers who stay awake long enough to ask: What are we really waiting for? These five remind us that the act itself—of reaching, yearning, enduring—is its own kind of fulfillment.

Talk to Marina Abramović about her silent performances, ask Hayao Miyazaki why his heroes never quite arrive, or discuss Greta Thunberg’s patience with urgency. The conversation is the waiting room we share.