Contemporary culture appears alternately suspicious or outright contemptuous of silence, writes Yahia Lababidi* Living as we do, in the busyness of this modern world, hooked up, beeping and under the false imperative of needing to keep in touch with everything, we find ourselves in the unhealthy situation of losing our silences and the sustenance that comes with them. So we desperately rush, hurling ourselves from one activity to the next, without ever pausing to process what it is we've learned. The erosion of silence in our lives is unmistakably connected with our increased stress levels as well as increasingly shortened attention spans. This, in turn, negatively affects our ability to both think and feel deeply, in order to sift through the deluge of stimuli that informs our hurried and harried days. Culture of noise With the culture of reading imperilled (previously a portal to silence) in favour of "information snacking" to accommodate our hectic schedules, coupled with the media's shrill and insistent competition for our attention, it becomes necessary to guard our silences even more vigilantly. In this context, for example, we can more closely examine how the internet affects our concentration and capacity for critical thinking. If French philosopher Blaise Pascal is right that "all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone," then the proliferation of talk and reality shows may be seen as symptomatic of our cultural malaise. Reality shows, which actually serve to distract us from reality, or being present to ourselves, are precisely a reflection of our collective "inability to sit quietly in a room alone". Just like silence, noise too can be the absence of sound. Noise is also the silent invasion of our inner spaces by the clutter of undigested information and unsorted emotions that pile up throughout the days and weeks. With our private spaces thus encroached upon, we risk becoming alienated from ourselves until our lives are something foreign to us. Rather than allow ourselves to be shoved into the bathroom, perhaps the last sanctuary of personal space and reflection, we should instead question the necessity or merit of amusing and multitasking ourselves to death. Against the odds of what at times appears to be a conspiracy of noise, we must try to assert our birthright to retreat, reflect and regenerate. The many silences In this pursuit of quietude, cultivating silence can also mean cultivating attention, so that we are present to ourselves and the deeper life that is continually unfolding within and around us. We may begin to do so by investigating the silences available to all of us, knowing them better as well their judicious uses. Three categories we can explore in some depth are: silence as language (wordless communication), as entity (physical presence in nature), and as a kind of metaphysical portal (for contemplation, meditation, transcendence). As a language, it can be the thing and its opposite: eloquent or clumsy, despairing or serene, polite or impolite, communicating empathy or resentment. Which is to say, as means of wordless communication, silence is as fluid and protean as the emotions that inform it, often transmitting what words cannot. As poet Rainer Maria Rilke confesses: "Things aren't so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered." As an entity too, silence can be difficult to define. For it is not merely the absence of sound, but may be perceived as an actual physical presence as well. The elemental silence found in the natural world is a case in point: whether it is relative (forest, underwater) or absolute (desert, before a storm, or outer space). Such experiences of silence as entity may be said to represent a kind of auditory equivalent to stillness. Another category of silence, as portal, is very much like a state that we are said to "enter" and "emerge" from. Reading can act as a springboard to access this region of the soul, where one is transported and "lost in thought". Contemplation and meditation are two further examples. Prayer is yet another, especially in the inclusive definition of Ralph Waldo Emerson: "the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul." In fact, various spiritual traditions agree on the importance of observing silence as a tool for inner growth/self- transformation. Moreover, based on scans of Buddhist monks' brains, the young science of Neuroplasticity indicates that meditation actually alters the structure and functioning of the brain. In other words, our thoughts and silences can, in effect, change our minds and even our lives: the ultimate goal of philosophy or religion. Returning to being It may seem like a betrayal to speak of silence, to break an unspoken pact. And yet it is there, inextricably woven into the fabric of our lives -- whether we are conscious of it or not. It exists in the gaps between our words, interactions, as well as encounters with the natural world. Whether we know it or not, silence is a platform from which we observe and interrogate our selves and the world. As Sufi poet Rumi puts it, "a person does not speak with words. Truth and affinity draws people. Words are only a pretext." What's more, silence is a prerequisite for certain vital solitary activities, such as reading, thinking, daydreaming, healing, and praying. But ubiquity does not ensure intimacy. Or as Hegel put it: "what is well known is not necessarily known merely because it is well known." Thus, silence is both under considered and undervalued. Perhaps by learning to recognise our silences in their many guises we can partly demystify them and become more intimate with them. Whether longed for or reviled, summoned or thrust upon us, silence is an inescapable force in our lives. Yet curiously, as a discipline, philosophy seems not to have deeply investigated this constant presence, leaving it up to spirituality, poetry and psychology to explore these mysterious spaces. Nonetheless, it remains a slippery subject to pin down. Rather than being defined negatively, as the absence or perhaps failure of words, silence may instead be viewed positively as somehow existing before and beyond representation, a primordial essence that lurks beneath our constructed world. In the immortal words of the Tao Te Ching : "Returning to the root is silence/ Silence is returning to being." It is in silence that things patiently unfold, open up and trust us with their secrets or reveal their hidden nature -- be they shy ideas or creatures, daybreak or a work of art. In this fundamental and seemingly privileged state, what seems to elude the world of words and sound may otherwise dawn on us; perhaps because we are now in the position to overhear ourselves and tell ourselves what we already know. It is no surprise then that realisations and revelations are forged in this realm. Silence is, after all, the best response and conduit for our most profound experiences: awe, love and death. That said; silence, like any controlled substance, must be handled with care. It is up to each person to determine how much is desirable or useful; as too much of this good thing might be counterproductive for some, even dangerous. "Social intercourse seduces one into self-contemplation," muses writer Franz Kafka. The aim, then, is to try to find that healthy balance between silent fasts and noise feasts on the slippery road to moderation. * The writer is a poet, thinker and the author of a book of 300 original sayings, Signposts to Elsewhere . This essay is an abridged version of Lababidi's "In Praise of Silence".
