Silence: Our greatest myth

Silence is nothing but a well advertised concept. Complete silence is, at best, a myth.

I say this knowing full well the criticisms and counter arguments that I will receive. Let us conduct a bit of an experiment, shall we? Try as hard as you can to remember the last time you can truly say you were in the presence of silence.

Try to think of a time when you could hear no sound. There was no humming of electronics. There was no clacking of shoes against concrete. There was no sound of your own breathing.

You cannot think of such a time because no such time exists.

The hippies of the world will argue that the world has turned its back on silence because it has forgotten the simplicities of life. Before all the technology and machines we were all perfectly capable of finding silence, they will say. This belief is in want for truth in at least fifty different ways in every possible universe. Simply put, it is nonsense.

But let us entertain the idea. Let us say, momentarily, that the world could conjure up silence before cars, phones and hair dryers existed. Let us imagine a world with nothing but human beings, their basic senses and the natural world. There is no language. No music. Is silence a part of it? Was silence ever a part of us? No it is not –and it never was.

You see, even if every animate thing in existence were to lose mobility the world would be anything but quiet. There would be the wind, dry leaves against tree trunks and raindrops landing in rivers (amongst other worldly things). It does not matter if you hike up onto the highest point of the Swiss Alps, you will never find silence.

Let us conduct another experiment. Go to the quietest place you know of. Hide yourself in the depths of stillness and cover your ears to the best of your ability. What do you hear? It is not “nothing” is it? You hear your heart beating. You hear what I have concluded is your blood running through your veins. You hear...even when you strive for silence.

Your body is an orchestra in itself. Nature is life’s choir. The world is a philharmonic mass. Silence is not golden, it simply isn’t. The word itself is loaded with noise, how do we expect its manifestation to be anything else?