most people are perfectly afraid of silence

Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?

Silence can be either protest or consent, but most times it’s fear.

The problem with silence is that it can’t speak up and say why it’s silent. And so silence collects, becomes amplified, takes on a life outside our intentions, in that silence can get misread as indifference, or avoidance, or even shame, and eventually this silence passes over into forgetting.

Q: What is silence?
A: Silence is an austerity. You control your desire to talk. By talking, people try to impress others, which you can't do if you are in silence. In silence you have to develop tolerance. At first it is difficult to do because you separate yourself from others by not expressing yourself. But gradually the mind reduces that ego and an aspirant accepts the situation, which develops tolerance and reduces anger.

These people so scared of silence. These are my neighbors. These sound-oholics. These quiet-ophobics.

It is the silence that frightens me so in the evenings and at night...I can't tell you how oppressive it is never to be able to go outdoors, also I am very afraid that we will be discovered and be shot.

We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox.

Too many people seem to believe that silence was a void that needed to be filled, even if nothing important was said.

The keeper of silence has tremendous control. What she keeps sealed away can never be harmed so long as it remains hidden. Silence is a power, yes, but when does silence turn upon its keeper and become the captor? When does it inhibit the natural impulse to speak, the urge to sing, the longing to contribute? So many wait for the express invitation to speak, for some permission to be granted, to be coaxed into contributing. But what if this invitation never comes? When does silence stop us from fulfilling our purpose, or making connections with others? When does silence stop a healthy disagreement, like the one that names an injustice and invokes change? When is silence being complicit, when it should be calling on a revolution waiting to happen?

Some people are uncomfortable with silences. Not me. I’ve never cared much for call and response. Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn’t.

Silence is pure and holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking.

And it is because we all of us know of this sombre power and its perilous manifestations, that we stand in so deep a dread of silence. We can bear, when need must be, the silence of ourselves, that of isolation: but the silence of many - silence multiplied - and above all the silence of a crowd - these are supernatural burdens, whose inexplicable weight brings dread to the mightiest soul.

What is important is not what is said, but that some talk be continually going on. Silence is the great crime, for silence is lonely and frightening. One shouldn’t feel much, nor put much meaning into what one says: what you say seems to have more effect if you don’t try to understand. One has the strange impression that these people are all afraid of something — what is it? It is as if the “yatata” were a primitive tribal ceremony, a witch dance calculated to appease some god. There is a god, or rather a demon, they are trying to appease: it is the specter of loneliness which hovers outside like the fog drifting in from the sea. One will have to meet this specter’s leering terror for the first half-hour one is awake in the morning anyway, so let one do everything possible to keep it away now.