I once had a friend give a talk on silence where he said nothing for the first 4 minutes and 33 seconds (an allusion to the famous John Cage piece).
The audience’s reaction, as he tells it, was priceless. Initially, confusion- everyone assumed something was wrong, despite the presenter saying nothing and seeming very content with the current state of affairs. Over time this evolved into murmurs of confusion and nervous laughter.
This is obviously an extreme case, but we’re fundamentally bad at silence. Silence with others. Silence with ourselves. When was the last time you took 10 minutes to be silent in both action and thought?
A synonymous question- when was the last time you took 10 minutes to indulge yourself in purposelessness? You might be thinking “Sounds boring”, to which I have 2 rebuttals:
- If you’re as busy as you think you are, when was the last time you let yourself be bored? Sounds like a nice reprieve.
- Don’t mistake “tranquil”, “pensive”, or “calm” with “bored”.
Take 10 minutes. Put the phone, tablet, and computer away and embrace silence.