When to Act Swiftly

Inaction in “That’s When” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

If you spend as much time around finance bros as I do (and, I wouldn’t be surprised if both TSes did– Taylor Swift’s father was a stock broker, and T.S. Eliot was a banker), you’ve probably heard them complain recently that the Federal Reserve waited too long to begin raising rates to tackle inflation. Essentially, Wall Street types fear that the Fed will trigger a recession as it takes increasingly aggressive steps to quell inflation, and contend that had the Fed acted sooner to bring down inflation, it would have avoided having to take such extreme, recession-inducing measures now. But the Fed’s failure to move quickly on inflation can only be criticized with the benefit of hindsight;  Its hesitancy stemmed from its lack of knowledge about whether inflation would persist, as well as the fear that acting too aggressively too soon would jeopardize economic recovery from Covid. This sort of problem – whether to act decisively with limited information in ways that could have negative consequences or instead to wait and gather more information while maintaining the status quo – extends beyond financial decisions; It is a fundamental tension in romantic choices as well.  

T.S Eliot explores this dilemma in “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock.” Tracing Prufrock’s internal monologue as he agonizes over whether to ask the “overwhelming question” and reach out to a girl he likes, Eliot emphasizes Prufrock’s worries over acting decisively. As Prufrock wonders “Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,/  Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?” he also understands that the strength to “force the moment to its crisis” by taking action could be devastating, wondering “Would it have been worth it, after all” to try to form a connection with her “If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,/And turning toward the window, should say:/ ‘That is not it at all,/ That is not what I meant, at all.’” In other words, throughout the poem Prufrock is left to figure out whether to take action – to ask the overwhelming question – which could ultimately destroy the hope of a relationship if he’s rejected, or, rather than force the moment to its crisis, to continue on the path of inertia. Like the Fed, he’s paralyzed by a difficult choice with potentially devastating consequences if he waits too long or acts too quickly. 

On the one hand, waiting can allow decision makers the ability to get better information. As Kafka used to say, “All human errors stem from impatience, a premature breaking off of a methodical approach.” This encapsulates both Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s and J. Alfred Prufrock’s approach to the tension between waiting and taking action: Both believed they had the time to be patient, learn more, and strategize the right action. Just as the Fed waited to raise rates, Prufrock repeats the phrase “there will be time” incessantly, asserting that there will be “Time for you and time for me,/ And time yet for a hundred indecisions,/ And for a hundred visions and revisions,/ Before the taking of a toast and tea.” He doesn’t feel the need to act quickly to build a relationship with the girl he’s interested in, even though putting it off prolongs the agony of the situation. 

While prioritizing patience can provide better information about a situation, it also slows down time-sensitive decisions, like the Fed faced. Shakespeare notes that waiting and thinking about a choice inherently means that we won’t take action swiftly. Another character who faced a famously tough choice about whether to act or wait for more information about a situation, Hamlet concludes that patient inquiry can inhibit actions that need to be made quickly. As he puts it, “the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought/ And enterprises of great pith and moment/ With this regard their currents turn awry/ And lose the name of action.” Prufrock’s assertion that there will be time to figure out whether to ask the overwhelming question inherently dulls the natural  impulse to just ask it.

But while this problem – deciding when to act and when to wait – may be challenging for lesser thinkers like T.S. Eliot, Jerome Powell, and William Shakespeare, it doesn’t faze Taylor Swift. In her “From The Vault” song “That’s When” she creates a world in which making decisions quickly doesn’t matter, so that a choice can be thoughtfully considered. The song revolves around the question one partner has about when she can return to her ex after “taking a break” from a relationship. For someone like J. Alfred Prufrock, this would be an agonizing choice, with the need to figure out the right move at odds with the need to decide quickly, but Swift creates an idealized split where both partners agree that there will be time to figure it out and there’s no rush to take action, eliminating the fear of deciding too slowly. In response to the question “When can I come back?” Swift has the idealized ex-boyfriend reply,  “When I wake up/ That’s when, when it’s sunny or storming/ Laughing when I’m crying/ And that’s when I’ll be waiting at the front gate/ That’s when, when I see your face/ I’ll let you in.” In other words, there’s no pressure for the ex to return quickly or risk losing the relationship; She has the luxury of waiting and thinking through the choice. Thus, Swift offers a utopian vision that’s particularly appealing to the likes of Powell and Prufrock: a system in which a decision does not have to stem from impatience because slowness won’t result in negative consequences.