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The Silence We Fear
“Most people are afraid of silence; hence, whenever the everlasting chit-chat at a party suddenly stops, they are impelled to say something, do something, and start fidgeting, whistling, humming, coughing, whispering.”
~Carl Jung
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Blaise Pascal in the 17th century in France wrote ‘even the King grows miserable if he reflect on himself’, so we invented the jester to distract the court from reflecting upon self. He said at that point all of our troubles stem from one thing, that ‘we can not bear to be alone with ourselves in our private chambers’. That’s Pascal before the internet and the 24/7 buzz that our culture represents. Our cultures answer to the existential anxiety of being human is distraction. If you’re distracted we’ll keep you entertained or diverted in someway, until someday you realize — that was your life… that was your life.
Most of us really “know” what is right for us, though we may be frightened or intimidated to know what we already know.
~James Hollis
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“If there were silence, their fear would make people reflect, and there’s no knowing what might then come to consciousness.”
Noise protects us from painful reflection, it scatters our anxious dreams, it assures us that we are all in the same boat and creating…
