Silence

Silence

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/11/transfiguring-qualities-of-silence-and-solitude

There is an excellent piece of writing in the Guardian today about silence.

This is a subject that is close to my heart. I both loathe and love silence and it is all dependent upon circumstances as to which is the prevalent force.

I assume that this piece was written as a reflective article about the two minute silence on Armistice Day, and if I have written about this before, then apologies for the repetition but, as I said, it is something that actually fascinates me.

And apparently it fascinates other people too. For whilst I was reading the Libby Brooks article which mentioned John Cage’s Silence 4’33”, that very piece was being played, albeit a mere snippet, on the radio during Desert Island Discs. I love that sort of synergy. It spooks me out but it is truly wonderful too.

The silence on Desert Island discs made me think though. Apparently, Kirsty could not play the piece for too long in case people thought that the world had ended or that Radio Four had gone off air for good, which is possibly the same thing.

People are unnerved by such prolonged silence, which is part of the reason for the composition of this piece in the first instance. In fact this piece is set for a debut into the pop charts as an ongoing rage against X-Factor and the abomination of sounds that can come out of such programmes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep/30/christmas-no1-facebook-campaign

I was actually going to write about this a couple of weeks ago as the BBC ran a reality programme about some people who had busy lives where silence was sincerely lacking.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/proginfo/tv/2010/wk42/feature_big_silence.shtml

I only managed to catch the first programme and would quite like to get around to watching the others because these people were really struggling.

They, and we, come from a world where real silence is lacking, where we do not do enough to actually search for the sort of silence that our poor worn out senses actually require.

The Big Silence was frightening. Listening to one’s own thoughts without interruption from any intervention whatsoever was completely new, totally alien and utterly overwhelming for the participants in this programme. They sought to subvert, collecting together in shadowed whispers just to break what they saw as the monotony of constant silence.

The Armistice Silence is probably more poignant because it is the only time when people collectively observe that nothingness and completeness in any given year. It resonates because people do not do it. Silence is an unknown quantity to the population.

I am sitting here in silence at the moment. I have no music to distract me. The radio is on mute and yet I can hear the tapping of my fingers on the keys of the computer. I can hear the wind driving through the remnants of leaves outside, and the gentle twinkle of my wind chime reminds me that there is still noise in my alleged silent place.

How often do we really clear our minds from all sound? How often do we lie down and let silence subsume us?

I do it in the bath.

Sometimes, that is the best place for silence as you mute everything on diving below the waterline. In such times, I lose myself to my thoughts and sometimes I try and banish thoughts too because what I require is not just silence but solitude too.

Silence is different from solitude, solitude is different from loneliness. Sometimes, we confuse it all and bring forth all sorts of misnomers in doing so.

There are times in my busy life when I want to be on my own. There are times when I simply want the rest of the world to disappear so that I can enjoy being with myself, my thoughts, my actions, my being. It doesn’t happen often enough.

There are times when enforced solitude is the very last thing I want because human touch and conversation is what I need but that has to be balanced out with that desire to be alone.

But even in that solitude, I do not always get silence, and I do wonder whether I could cope with prolonged silence day after day without interruption from anything at all.

Would that make me a better person? Would I be more in tune with my spiritual side if I did get more silence?
Living in the city, can you ever get silence? It certainly doesn’t sound the same as the sort of silence I get when I am walking alone along the coast, but then is that silence either because you can always hear the crashing of the waves?

Silence is not embraced in our society.

We coo and call to babies, encouraging them to speak at the earliest opportunity. We give them loud toys to play with and hope that they will follow the tunes that we prescribe. We constantly ask them questions about what they are doing, how they are feeling. We sit them in their cots with a musical mobile so that they are never alone to silence.

We bombard them with television and radio, music and chatter, so that they grow up thinking that silence is something to be feared.

And then we (well some) insist on them being ‘silent’ in concentrated work. No wonder the poor mites are terrified by such a sound. No wonder it seems unrealistic and unnatural.

How can we foster the sort of imagination that we want from our youngsters without them experiencing both silence and solitude, and noise and togetherness? We need both.

Libby Brooks states “An ocean separates the creative potential of quiet solitude from the suffocating isolation of loneliness”. This is so true, and some walk a thin line between the two. But those who embrace balance will know the virtue of silence and the meaning of solitude as much as the joy of conversation and the intimacy of sharing.

Yes, we must learn how to share silence and share solitude, if that does not sound like an oxymoron.

I can be perfectly at one with myself, in solitude, in a room full of people if I enable this to happen. I can enjoy the silence of another’s solitude if the relationship is right. Silence and solitude between two people sharing a space is one of the most intimate things in life.

Equally, I can feel like the loneliest person on the planet if solitude is enforced in a world where silence does not prevail.

How strange it is that I can sit in a room with one person reading a book and find great comfort whereas sitting in another room with another person reading a book makes me feel so alone.

Back to balance.

Finding your voice in silence is something that we should all endeavour to do. Allowing time for switch off from the world and even from the people that we most love in the world, is also a necessity that too few people recognise the value thereof.

Giving children a voice is vital. Giving them silence is less considered as being so important and yet we must do this in a positive and not punitive way.

Do you know, in the West we have so much to learn about the values in life that are there for us to grasp, that cost nothing, that mean everything and yet we perpetually ignore, demoting them to insignificance.

Others have learned the importance of silence without it being deafening. Others have learned the significance of solitude without it tipping into loneliness. Others embrace the collegiality of conversation when the time is right and all of these things determine a more intimate existence with our fellow humankind.

Silence is such an important subject. It is something that we do not have, and as the author of the Guardian article states, we should not sideline for two minutes on a cold November day.

Listening to silence is a wondrous thing. Listening to what you mind is conjuring through the silence is something that so few of us do.

Let’s hope that the Cage piece will make it into the charts, not just as a gimmick of the 21^st century but to truly embrace the reason why the piece was written in the first place.