The Concept of Silence
And all the troubles around it
I rarely respond to messages and friend requests, and hardly able to support smalltalk — sometimes I feel that it makes me a criminal. Silence is a wall I sit behind for the most of my life, so I’ve studied every brick in it.
Everyone tells to start building bridges instead of walls, but all the walls were built for a reason. Walls are meant to protect. I believe that not all of them deserve the deconstruction— some deserve a UNESCO preserving program.
So I’m making a list.
Silence as resistance
You might own everything, but you don’t own my mind
In Pushkin’s play “Boris Godunov” (a character similar to Shakespeare’s Richard III), the final scene shows the evil usurper proclaiming himself a king in front of the crowd. He expects them to cheer, but the very last line says “The crowd is silent”.
For centuries literature critics fought over this line, arguing what does it mean. To me, that was the sound of doom. This lack of reaction was the only way for the people to refuse the rules of the game — and the ruler himself.
In a hopeless situation these people used silence to manifest full authority over the only thing that’s left: their own minds. As I often can’t drag my attention out of Instagram feed, I see this silence as one of the most badass moves ever.
Imagine people and media collectively ignoring Trump in the beginning of his campaign — things would take quite a different route. Imagine we could really forget Herostratus, that guy who torched Artemis temple just to become famous — how many others like him would we avoid?
I love one example of this strategy — the legend of Lady Godiva. She was the wife of Earl Leofric of Coventry and was known and respected for her kindness. Once she protested her husband’s decision to raise the taxes for citizens. Enraged, he told her he can cancel the taxes, but if she loves these folks so much she should ride through the whole city, naked. She did that.
The legend says that citizens of Coventry were so respectful to the lady, that they all stayed at home and shut their windows as she passed through the city. Historians say that the legend isn’t true. I prefer to believe it is. Would be such a nice counterpoint to Black Mirror and the modern media.
Silence as disrespect
Because you’re below my level
I imagine every social interaction like proposing a handshake — lack of response means that your hand was left dangling in the void. Silence means that the other person refuses to recognise your worth. Smalltalk, then, is a series of small, preventive, somewhat neurotic handshakes, made to confirm equality and avoid any conflict.
The absence of an answer feeds doubts: what if I was wrong, what if nobody cares, what if they don’t like me — oh, I was so stupid to start it altogether. This silence is used as a decent form of response to accusations and insults — as if they are so ridiculous they aren’t worth any attention. This silence feels like a slap in the face, endlessly stretched in slow-motion.
Silence as mercy
Because words do harm
Once I’ve done a trip from the South of Italy towards the North with BlaBlaCar. It was 7 hours in a car fully packed with friendly talkative people who tried to drag me into the conversation. I fell ill for several days after this trip. I’m a person who can be killed by smalltalk.
It has a lot to do with my culture. Russia is perceived as a grim country, but silence here is mostly mercy. People assume that your life is complicated enough even without them loading you with chatter. Anytime I come back, I feel like a great burden is falling from my shoulders: there is no social norm forcing me to joyfully talk to taxi drivers, waiters, and cashiers, — or to lie that everything is fine when it isn’t.
This approach is flawed, but I do think that every person deserves a right to retreat at any point of social interaction. We are fragile, complex, unstable beings. Sometimes topics are too touchy or confusing, sometimes there’s nothing to say, sometimes emotions are better left intact rather than spilled out.
Sometimes I don’t answer to my mother’s “How are you?” in WhatsApp, because don’t want to lie and I don’t want her to worry. I wish there would be a way to use the defensive quality of silence without its harming potential.
Silence as incubation
Let things grow
I had an oversharing period in my life — I used to tear all the blooming flowers to show them off, and then wonder why I stay in the middle of a dead field. Talking with everyone about a project idea was a surefire way to lose any motivation. If I shared a new perspective, a growing feeling, or a caught image prematurely I got them distorted, misunderstood and ripped from all the magic. Not all the things are better to be told.
“Talking it out” is treated like the default way to deal with a problem. But when we do it, we lose the chance to convert those feelings, to use them as a fertile ground able to create something truly special. Some ideas need a dark place to grow, develop and bloom, some decisions better be held to yourself, some hurt is better to live through alone.
Unless you are a potential maniac and your ideas constantly relate to harming living beings. If they do, please, call somebody and talk it out.
Silence as amputation
We don’t talk about it, we never do
There is, however, a difference between a fertile ground and cold and dark prison cell where all the unpleasant things are dying and rotting.
I had a relationship discussion with my ex-boyfriend recently. For years we were avoiding to touch the topic — and when we got to it, I realised I was unable to properly feel the feelings, not alone word them. It felt like my fingers were amputated while I wasn’t looking at them, and all the things that looked so easy now became impossible.
The same thing happens when I switch off the newsfeed that shows me war and suffering, or isolate myself from people who share their pain. Compassion, as a skill, as the ability to feel, slowly deteriorates with each manifestation of this silence.
This silence is the enemy of disadvantaged, of misfits, of all those who have a voice but no big marketing budgets and no influencer friends. This silence feels like a relief from everything disturbing, but slowly creeps in and deconstructs a human, a society, a culture.
Silence as unity
Silence also comes in form of a badge that decorates developed relationships — a thing that you can afford only when you’ve shared enough. I treasure these moments of profound understanding, free from misconceptions and hurt, from hustle and insecurities.
This silence is like merging with something trillion times bigger and older: nature, destiny, or love. It makes me realise that all what I am is just a tiny grain of sand on the bottom of the World Ocean.
And what a tiny grain could really say?
