A Much-Needed Muchness of Silence
“‘I don’t think—’
‘Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter.”
I adore Alice. The poor kid wanders a world that makes no sense and she’s just trying to figure out where she belongs. When I was younger, I thought exorcised my inner Alice by now, but nope. I still sometimes find the world and other people to be—in Alice’s parlance—curiouser and curiouser. She leaves the disorienting tea party thoroughly insulted because the others won’t listen to her, yet, as she was leaving, “she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her.” (Carroll, 64) Despite the offense she takes, she’s still disappointed that she couldn’t connect with them. But throughout the disorienting scene, she doesn’t pause to listen to them either. In her rush to be clever and included, she doesn’t leave room for any silence that might allow her to understand what’s going on.
Back in my acting days, I worked with lots of extraordinary actors, but one changed the way I [try to] approach the world. The first time I met Jimmy, we were both acting apprentices at a small theatre in Vermont and we were paired together in an audition. I was scared silly because auditions always scared me silly. And because I was generally scared silly as a human navigating the world. But during that audition, I forgot I was auditioning. It didn’t feel like we were actors; it felt like we were just two people having a private conversation. We ended up cast as understudies in the roles we auditioned for and I asked him to do a scene study with me in our free time so I could absorb everything he could teach me. I learned a lot from Jimmy during the time we worked together, but the first time we met for scene study, he said something that changed me, not only as an actor, but as a person:
“Just listen,” he told me. “It’s as simple as that.”
Then he added, “Simple doesn’t mean easy. There’s a big difference between those words.”
Touché.
“Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.”
I dug into figuring out how to listen to my acting partners and it was miraculous. I felt deeper bonds with my characters, connected more emotionally to scene partners, and became a better actor. If I was scared silly, it was because I wasn’t listening well enough. I worked on putting m̶y̶ ̶n̶e̶u̶r̶o̶t̶i̶c̶i̶s̶m̶ myself aside and focusing on the other person and, wingardium leviosa, wouldn’t you know, it worked.
Then it dawned on me that if listening was that powerful in my acting, perhaps it would be useful in my real life. Jimmy said one of the truest things another person has ever told me when he said that it’s simple but not easy. I’m lucky to have a spouse that is an incredibly gifted listener; Joe is far better at it than I am, but I get to learn from and practice with him. Luckily, he’s a patient guy.
Last month I experimented with the Quaker clearness process to formalize my listening practice through temperance. I found that, boy howdy, is Jimmy’s wisdom still true. I was preoccupied with figuring out how to ask good enough questions to help the person I was attempting to listen to, which prevented me from, you know, listening. This month, as I commit to practicing the virtue of silence, I’m dropping the clearness process. I’ll focus on practicing silence in my conversations so I can sharpen my listening skills.
My guess is that if I can keep my mind and mouth silent while listening to others, I may understand more fully what others are communicating to me. And if I can understand more fully, perhaps there’ll less storming out parties and more theories about the commonalities between ravens and writing desks..
How about you? Is silence difficult for you? Do you make time for silence in your life? How?! (Asking for a friend 😉)? And perhaps most importantly, do you know how a raven is like a writing desk? Share in the comments below.
Notes:
Image:
Tenniel, John. “Alice in Wonderland.” Wikimedia Commons, the Free Media Repository, 14 Oct. 2015, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_par_John_Tenniel_25.png.
Carroll, Lewis. “Chapter VII: A Mad Tea-Party.” Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Everyman, 2000. p. 64