During the Washington blizzard, or snowmageddon as it came to be known, my electricity was out for about a day. Just one day, but it was enough to make me think, and also enough because I was beginning to freeze.
I am part of a large family and growing up, there was always something going on inside my house. People were always coming in and out, and silence was hard to come by. Most of my siblings are out of the house at this point, but for some reason it is still almost never quiet. However, a couple days ago, on the day when there was no electricity, there was also silence. I awoke to, as it seemed to me... nothing.
Throughout the day I went in and out of boredom, and at one point that boredom seemed to be shifting into insanity. I found ways to occupy myself, but I was almost disgusted by how much I yearned to turn on the television or run to the computer. Eventually I succumbed to my boredom and decided to just rest, and that is exactly when I recognized the reason behind my unease.
I fear silence.
I think many of us fear silence.
Not for what it represents, but genuinely for what it is. We are never in complete silence, and when we are close to it we find ways to occupy ourselves in order to distract our thoughts from wandering too far. We distract ourselves in silence because it is difficult to confront "nothing." True silence is unfathomable, like death. We hope that we will never reach absolute silence because it is a concept so simple and easy, that it is abstract and unthinkable. A paradox.
We don't want to imagine "nothing" because our minds are so accustomed to clutter, and profuse compilations of memories and thoughts.
So is absolute silence death?
I don't think we will ever know... but then again we don't need to.
"when you can do nothing, what can you do?"
ReplyDeleteI think i feel the same way as you sometimes (i definitely hate not having electricity because there are no distractions, so you just have to face....yourself) but at the same time silence can be a good thing. during that same snow storm (as you may have read in my blog)i went outside and laid in the snow...and i just enjoyed the peace of everything around. it felt so beautiful, like the planet was so still and in complete silence. Which is weird to think that not too many miles away from us there was sunshine and sounds and people...etc.
i think we need to learn to appreciate everything, including the silence, including the "nothing" because even that nothing is something important all in itself.