I don't actually believe this. Well, not entirely.
But it's an expression of my irritation at the whole cult of silence. To love silence makes you deep; to love discussion, animation, and activity makes you shallow. Supposedly.
Apparently (at least people always say this), silence is undervalued in the modern world, despite all the bookshop shelves groaning under the weight of books on mindfulness, contemplative prayer, and introvert pride. (I'm an introvert. I'm not in the slightest bit proud of it.)
Celebrated arty films such as Solaris (the 2002 remake) or the aptly-named Into Great Silence (a bunch of Carthusians monks going about their day) are full of long moody shots and minutes on end without any dialogue. Trippy! Profound! Uncompromising!
When I get especially irritated at the cult of silence, I think of pointing out one place that is very silent indeed. Well, you've probably guessed it. The graveyard.
Of course, all this won't do. The Bible (and doubtless all wisdom literature) is full of injunctions to silence. So I should probably just shut up myself.
i share this distaste for 'mindfulness'. it always seemed like an undesirable state, the complete absence of thought. i meditate better walking, and my objective is never this silence, but ordered thoughts (or music). while i abhor noise, and noisy people, the silence i enjoy is never really silent. the breeze, and the birds, or the waves seem like better silences.
ReplyDeletethe Bible (more specifically Solomon) does have the right answer for this, which the eastern-obsessed guru-seekers reject: a time for this and a time for that! so simple, and so obvious.
there's a reason why there's six days of creation and only one sabbath. we need both ofc, but if the ratio was different, any sane person would get restless and start to fidget.
.Laeth
That's a very good point, six days to one! I never thought about it.
DeleteI'm sure that mindfulness has some value-- there are great claims for empirical benefits drawn from it. But the whole mindset it has inculcated is very annoying!