Mar 30, 2020

The Unspoken Worth of Silence

Source:  The Period of Silence
A time of quarantine due to the current pandemic might be a curious time to talk about the value of silence, and yet this is the time when I feel more need of it.

The world is being called to stay at home and practice social distancing, and though this happens in the physical world, the virtual world is exploding with more and more content, more and more chats and messages and calls. I would not call myself an introvert - people who know me know I am more of an extrovert - but I have never before more than now have felt just how much the contact with others overwhelms me.

In normal circumstances, I have several periods during the day that allow me to be entirely alone, undisturbed and able to be with myself. During this period, I have found that people keep reaching to me throught different means and for different reasons. Thus, though I am at home, isolated from others, I am not disconnected. This has been affecting my mood.

I could feel I was getting more and more irritated, and there was no way for me to stop it. Even after my working hours where over, and I turned off my computer, people kept talking to me, messaging me, wanting me to fill their idle, alone hours with conversation so they wouldn't feel alone. Yes, I can understand that, but they thing is that I need to feel alone. I need that silence to retrieve, to regroup. Curiously, during meditation I also have found that imagining a white light or any light for that matter bothers me, but if I imaging enveloping, soft twilight or darkness, filled with the sounds and scents and textures of old forests, that achieves to calm me.

These times are hard, but are not impossible on us. Let's find ways to adapt. I'll try to find a schedule to silence my phone after work, disconnect at all my meals, stand up more often from my chair, play a few minutes with my cats, write a line or two in my journal. Do you have any ideas? :-D

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