feel the silence
entry no. 7 ⸻ engulfed by the self
What is silence? Could it be the absence of all sound?
Perhaps.
Though, I would ere on believing that sort of silence does not truly exist, at least in the natural world. I have difficult time even conceptualizing the idea of true silence. If I stop and try to imagine silence in its truest most isolated form, I still hear the faint presence of some sort of accompanying sound. This leads me to believe it is possible to hear silence, that is, the silence as I know it outside of my mind. In fact, silence always makes itself heard. When you reject the stimuli, the sort inundated by the self, and just listen, what do you hear?
I hear the silence of the mornings: the muffled gusts of Chicago outside my window, the friction of my skin against my sheets, the crunches from my cat eating his breakfast. There is the silence of my breath. The air filling my lungs and passing through my nose, the rhythmic reminder that I am alive.
Then there is the trickle of coffee brewing and the subsequent pour from the carafe to my mug; the sound of liquid meeting a solid, an inexplicably tranquil harmony. I lean into the pleasure of this sort of silence.
I know, dear reader, you can hear all of this in your mind. But can you hear the silence that exists around you as you read this, right now? What a world we live in. That's right: a world.
There is the silence of life outside of my home: the scuff of my shoes against the pavement, the songs of beeps and honks, the coming and going of the conversations of those who pass by. The silence of the park and the silence of the water, birds are singing and the water is thrashing, but still, I feel the silence. Ah, feel the silence. That is what it is. Silence is not something I hear, but something I feel.
Silence can feel calm or tangled in the grasp of a tight fist. In the case of the latter, lest I forget, I must remember it is not the silence that brings this tension upon myself, but the noise that exists both within and without. Yet still, with this knowledge, there are times where I avoid the silence. It is in the silence where I am lead to the absolute recognition of the self as an individual. I am the largest and smallest entity I know.
I fear the silence, yet each day I try to make way for it. The silence makes things clearer. Both sight and understanding. I can hold things more easily. The things themselves are not lighter, nor are they heavier; it is just that my grasp becomes more deliberate. To feel the grooves and edges of my life is the greatest form of being. Within the silence I am holding the very items of my life, of my heart, and inspecting with great tactility the contents that create me. Taking a finger I poke and prod. To see and feel it all is illuminating to one's proprioception in all ways, good and bad. But I find oblivion in the case of the self is the principal shortcoming of being. So I will quiet my world and feel the silence for all that it can bring me. Let the silence engulf me like the ocean does a stone thrown. Sinking and surrounding, drifting and diving, until all that surrounds me is myself in relation to this world.
Thank you for reading — it truly means so much to me. I hope you may have found bits of this that resonated. I write primarily for myself, but also in hopes others might read and connect.
If you’re of interest, you can find the sort of movies I’m watching or books I’m reading or music I am listening to here.
With the utmost care,
Kailie