Social Silence
As we wrap up this month’s practice of silence, I’ve reconfirmed my friend Jimmy’s wisdom about the difference between simple and easy. It certainly applies to silence. It’s been a humbling practive and I’ve learned a lot that I can share with you.
Firstly, people tend to uphold conversations without listening. I’m sure you’ve experienced it too; one person asks How are you? the other says Fine, even when they’re not fine at all. Or someone says Happy birthday! and the response is You, too! even though they don’t share a birthday. We’re socialized to interact this way; our words to each other are often performative and empty. We have our own lives and agendas and fears we’re dealing with. Personally, I tend to be anxious in social situations; my brain overloads and starts spasming random thoughts or words in an attempt to pass myself off as a person at ease in the world. When I directed plays, one of the first things I learned is that when an actor is nervous or stuck in their head, give them something to do. Fold a paper crane. Iron a shirt. Knit a scarf. It doesn’t matter what it is, just engage them in an activity and they’ll come alive because they aren’t stuck in their own mind. It focuses their energy away from themselves. I found that practicing silence could be my version of doing that. Focusing on someone else or observing the environment around me took me out of my own fear and worry and I found that I was better able to connect without trying so hard. My real-life scenes came alive.
Secondly, people have varying degrees of comfort with silence. There’s a person in my life that does not appear to feel any compulsion whatsoever to uphold his end of a conversation. If he isn’t interested in what’s being said, he just won’t say anything. But if he is interested, he engages. He just doesn’t perform those empty social niceties. I usually find it off-putting and uncomfortable to talk with him, but as I’ve practiced silence, I’ve come to appreciate his approach more. I’ve spent more time cultivating a silence that dismantles performative social cues in favor of allowing the needs of others to come forward. I don’t always have to relate my own experience to others; if I practice silence, I usually understand other people better. Silence has taught me to emphasize the need to connect and know other people over my own impulse to focus on my opinions and experience.
Finally, I’ve learned that silence has allowed me to know others better. It creates an opportunity to empathize. If I cannot empathize, it still gives me a chance to sympathize, learn from another’s experience, and approach others with greater compassion. Silence requires an intentional commitment to practice and is a key to dismantling the dangerous echo chambers that keep people isolated and divided.
There’s a whole world of people and things to experience. Practicing silence has taught me an active way to see and experience more of it than I possibly could if I was merely stumbling around the world’s stage trying to remember my own lines. Next month, we’ll delve into the virtue of order, but I’ll leave you with an excerpt about silence from the thirteenth century mystic poet Rumi’s stunning poem, “The Great Wagon”1:
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
Notes:
Image by Patricia Alexandre from Pixabay
1. Rūmī, Ǧalāl al-Dīn and Coleman Barks. “The Great Wagon.” The Essential Rumi: New Expanded Edition. Harper Collins Publishers, 2004, pp. 35–37.