Recently, a friend excused herself for being so busy. She wondered why she was planning so much. I suggested to her that she might avoid silence. She acknowledged and then wondered whether it might be to fill the emptiness. I agreed. Both are related. Often we fill the emptiness with sounds (eg, elevators, shopping malls) as we fear silence and the feeling of emptiness.
A few days later, another (former?) friend accused me of having an empty life. Other people may agree with her that my life is “empty”. Her words were, however, a deliberate attack to hurt me intentionally, and to push me away from her. She forgot that you can only hurt someone with the truth. To me, her words felt more like reverse psychology and projection.
I do not consider my life “empty”. Others may feel an unbearable heaviness of emptiness but I do not. I love to roam and wander in my mind and to juggle with ideas and words. This resulted in 3 concepts / hypotheses, nearly 850 published blogs, and 175,000+ views. The mere fact that “emptiness” was mentioned twice last week, was already “food for thought“. This blog is its result.
The phenomenon of avoiding silence and emptiness is intriguing. In the context of my concept of Needs, Wants & Beliefs, I think, feel and believe that it’s a (basic) need rather than a (deliberate) want or a (conscious) belief. Emptiness and silence feel threatening. Sounds are comforting. This brings us back again to our two primal human emotions: Love and Fear.
It may seem like an extraordinary idea but my love for thinking might equal other people’s fear for thinking. Avoiding emptiness and silence are the best ways to prevent yourself from thinking. This brings me to the obvious question: why do we dislike/hate thinking??
The 1st thought that came to me, when considering this question, is the Truth about ourselves. Not thinking about ourselves avoids hurting ourselves as you can only hurt someone with the truth. Deep down we know the truth about ourselves. We have a choice to deny or accept that truth.
Hence, I think, feel and believe this must relate to my recent blog “The process of Change” and its 6 steps hearing, listening, accepting, believing, willingness and faith. The pivotal step in this case is accepting (yourself).
Avoiding emptiness and silence prevents thinking about who we are and also prevents Change. The human dislike of Change is legendary and well-described in the famous 1998 booklet “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Dr. Spencer Johnson (PDF). See several of my blogs.
Another, more superficial, explanation would include the human taboo on idleness. The apparent absence of motion and energy might confuse thinking with idleness. The taboo on idleness relates to the capital sin of sloth (eg, Bible).
“But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid? The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously the image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?” A quote from the 1984 book The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.
Turn The Music Up ! (2013) by Brand New Heavies – artists, lyrics, song, video, Wiki
Enjoy the Silence (1990) by Depeche Mode – artists, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
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