“I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.” ― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
I keep returning to silence — in my writing, my poetry and my nascent painting.
It’s not contrived. It just falls upon me.
If only the rest of my life was like that.
But it’s not. Mostly, it’s filled with meaningless or contrived conversation that leads to the same dead end.
Sh*t, that makes me sound like a miserable SOB. Perhaps I am; but then again, I think we often talk to fill up the space where silence naturally appears. Or, more likely, because we don’t like being alone with our thoughts.
I wonder, always, what would happen if we lived in silence? Would it make the few conversations more necessary, more engaging and more open to a new way of seeing things? I can’t possibly know, but for me at least, there’s a quality and depth to life that only silence brings about.
Have a wonderful Sunday.
Photo by DAVIDCOHEN on Unsplash