It may seem like a betrayal to speak of silence, to break an unspoken pact. Yet, whether we are conscious of it or not, it is there, inextricably woven into the fabric of our lives. As Sufi poet Rumi writes, “a person does not speak with words. Truth and affinity draws people. Words are only a pretext.” It exists in the gaps between our words and encounters with the natural world. In fact, silence is a platform from which we observe and interrogate ourselves and our world.
What’s more, silence is a prerequisite for certain vital solitary activities, such as contemplation, meditation, prayer, healing, as well as overhearing the dictates of our conscience.
But, ubiquity does not ensure intimacy. Thus, silence, this quiet capital of riches, is both under-considered and undervalued. Perhaps by learning to recognize our silences in their many guises, we may begin to demystify them and make them more intimate.
Whether longed for or reviled, summoned or thrust upon us, silence is an inescapable force in our lives. Yet curiously, as a discipline, Western Philosophy seems not to have deeply investigated this constant presence -- leaving it up to spirituality, poetry and psychology to explore this elusive territory. Perhaps for philosophers, maddened by their own music -- as they tend to be -- this slippery subject is perceived as a kind of rebuke to philosophy’s lust for logic and systems. In the words of that rare Western philosopher, Wittgenstein, who acknowledges the limits of reason and the sayable: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
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