Wait! Just Listen is a weekly Sunday newsletter on living a purposeful and meaningful life, in a digitised world of opinion polarisation, gratuitous commentary and click-bait. Before I present today’s essay, I feel I need to explain the recent unanticipated pause in new content over the past couple of weeks. I’ve recently assumed a new role (at my day job) which has introduced a feverishly frenetic work and travel schedule. Please bear with me as I formulate a sustainable plan (or something akin to it) going forward. Ironically, this sudden hiatus has coincided with the biggest growth in readership I’ve ever had, which is bizarre and yet reaffirming. Either way, I hope you enjoy today’s heartfelt offering.
Love this sentence: “But it is only in rare moments of deadening silence, when the senses lie dormant, that the nameless voice within, a voice unperturbed by external perception and unburdened by expectation, speaks.” And no worries being busy, we’ll be here waiting for when you post ;)
This is so beautiful and apt. I have had many moments of self-realisation while sitting or lying down in silence. Alone but never lonely. Because in the silence, the self speaks.
Aaah... yes. Solitude my favourite state and space. And silence? For me there are two aspects to marrying these states/spaces. There is the simple aspect of no external noise which must be artificial: I lived on an island with hubby and dog, without electricity for more than 3 years - nature is noisy! So this ‘sound of silence’ for me means simply ‘peace’. But I understand that for most, silence means the absence of ‘modern life impinging on our physical state’... maybe? Certainly I have never experienced ‘no sound at all’ - even my body is noisy. Again Buddhist thinking as hubby often describes encompasses ‘the sound of silence’ - an acknowledgment that there is more to it... as I see it - external‘silence’ simply invites internal engagement which I think is exactly what your saying in a far more beautiful way than I?
Life is full of rhythms and cycles so no worries on any hiatus or reduced activity here - capitalism may not recognise this imperative but I do. Always enjoy your words. With gratitude...
The painting you chose is stunning. I stared at it for long moments.
So much modernity assaults our senses that when my house loses power on occasion, it's like a gift from the heavens and I actually feel my body release tension. No refrigerator hum, or TV, or phone, or faint buzzes from lights.
To be honest, I find myself at times using distractions to ward of the inward silence, believing the ego's lies that what I'll find will bring great discomfort. Funny, it never has. It makes me wonder if the modern distractions have become a drug my brain demands more of. This piece is a great reminder of silence and its vast power.
There is outer silence, utter quiet, the unerving lack of any aural reference for the mind to engage, and without which it craves distraction like the body craves breath. There is too a silence just beside utter quiet that persists often unperceived at it's margins, and is so unshakeable that it does not depend on the misplaced authority of thought nor on quiet.
Love this sentence: “But it is only in rare moments of deadening silence, when the senses lie dormant, that the nameless voice within, a voice unperturbed by external perception and unburdened by expectation, speaks.” And no worries being busy, we’ll be here waiting for when you post ;)
This is so beautiful and apt. I have had many moments of self-realisation while sitting or lying down in silence. Alone but never lonely. Because in the silence, the self speaks.
Aaah... yes. Solitude my favourite state and space. And silence? For me there are two aspects to marrying these states/spaces. There is the simple aspect of no external noise which must be artificial: I lived on an island with hubby and dog, without electricity for more than 3 years - nature is noisy! So this ‘sound of silence’ for me means simply ‘peace’. But I understand that for most, silence means the absence of ‘modern life impinging on our physical state’... maybe? Certainly I have never experienced ‘no sound at all’ - even my body is noisy. Again Buddhist thinking as hubby often describes encompasses ‘the sound of silence’ - an acknowledgment that there is more to it... as I see it - external‘silence’ simply invites internal engagement which I think is exactly what your saying in a far more beautiful way than I?
Life is full of rhythms and cycles so no worries on any hiatus or reduced activity here - capitalism may not recognise this imperative but I do. Always enjoy your words. With gratitude...
Most agreed. Learning to appreciate the silence is critical. Especially in the very noisy (raucous) rough & tumble world we inhabit.
The painting you chose is stunning. I stared at it for long moments.
So much modernity assaults our senses that when my house loses power on occasion, it's like a gift from the heavens and I actually feel my body release tension. No refrigerator hum, or TV, or phone, or faint buzzes from lights.
To be honest, I find myself at times using distractions to ward of the inward silence, believing the ego's lies that what I'll find will bring great discomfort. Funny, it never has. It makes me wonder if the modern distractions have become a drug my brain demands more of. This piece is a great reminder of silence and its vast power.
There is outer silence, utter quiet, the unerving lack of any aural reference for the mind to engage, and without which it craves distraction like the body craves breath. There is too a silence just beside utter quiet that persists often unperceived at it's margins, and is so unshakeable that it does not depend on the misplaced authority of thought nor on quiet.