In our modern society, we constantly feel the need to mind the gap. The gap in this case being silence. We are always in search of artificial ways to fill every inch of our time with something we deem more useful than just sitting around in silence. We are all guilty of going on our phones just to end up randomly tapping on different apps, filling awkward breaks in conversation with unnecessary comments on the weather and putting on music when we are faced with a long walk to class.
Sometimes we don’t like the silence because it exposes us and forces us to hear our own thoughts. This can be a scary prospect for many, but taking ownership of silence can actually be a sign of confidence, comfortability and peace of mind.
We all know the pain of talking with an acquaintance you don’t really have anything in common with and just standing there awkwardly when the conversation eventually dies out. This is the silence that gets a horrible social reputation because it leaves everyone involved feeling slightly cringed out by the experience. We fear those last couple seconds of an interaction because we are afraid of judgment from the other person. We are afraid that those last couple of seconds obviously mean we are antisocial and can’t make friends, or something along those lines, but being afraid of silence is completely irrational when you think about it.
This fear is instilled by modern society glorifying the constant buzz of speech when, in reality, words mean little to nothing without the silence that accompanies them. Silence or pauses in conversations can actually be a sign that someone is truly listening to what you’re saying and taking their time to process the information. Once you accept the silence, you might find that you are no longer uncomfortable in it but rather letting it take its course.
Even during meals, people often feel the need to talk to each other, which, when you think about it, seems pretty counterproductive when you’re just trying to eat. It is with the people I am most comfortable with that some of my best memories are just driving around our hometown, not talking at all.
This may seem like some sort of anti-social regime I am backing, but in reality, when you begin to think about how much silence we avoid unnecessarily every day, it seems pretty exhausting, especially when we have so many other important things to concentrate on.
Even though uncomfortable silence is common, and something we all just have to adapt to, silence with those we consider close to us can often be so much more meaningful than loads of conversation about unimportant topics.
A motto I grew up hearing from my mom was, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say it at all,” which I think can also be loosely applied to the value of silence. Although this phrase was mostly used when my brother and I would verbally attack each other in our youth, I now interpret it as defining silence as a powerful choice rather than something we are subjected to. In choosing silence, we are choosing to be mindful about what we say next and reflective about the things we have said in the past.