Silence

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.

Living

Today is a wonderful day. Everyday is a wonderful day, and every moment is one that should be enjoyed and cherished. Why is that we cannot understand that? Why is it that I cannot understand that. Everything I do, seems to distract me somehow from "living." Everything is always a means to an end. But what if that means stops being a means and becomes the end. What if I stopped treating every moment like an obstacle... how would life change?

This is a lot easier said than done I must add. Almost every single Buddhist book I read tells me to "live in the moment," but I always tell myself I just need to finish school, or I just need to live here, in order to do that. This is the moment in which I need to be living.

So I invite everyone or anyone to advise me on how to live. I do believe myself to be happy, but how can I turn something I dread into something I enjoy?

The Beginning

Everything is the beginning of something, and this is the beginning of my quite arbitrary blog. I have no intentions for this, and I have no idea where my posts will take me... but I want to document my thoughts and discuss my curiosities. So here goes...