Straight in the eyes, an unpublished text praising silence: a misunderstood weapon capable of countering the horrors and degrading speeches of a world prone to making only noise; encouraging only speech even when it may prove useless.
There are two very different types of silence: sometimes we remain silent because we cannot speak, sometimes because we have something better to do. These are not at all the same thing!
The first silence, which I have experienced, like everyone else, traps us in the failure or impossibility of speech: the silence of aphasia, isolation, shyness, quarrel, incommunicability, sometimes even within a couple or family.
The second silence opens us up to the world, to ourselves, and to others: the silence of sensation, action, attention, listening, meditation, contemplation, sometimes love. Suffering is not the same as saying “I am in pain.” Enjoying is not the same as saying “This is good.” Loving is not the same as saying “I love you.” This silence is reality itself, life itself, which is not a word, nor several, but that which words speak about when they are true, when they approach the essential instead of masking it. This is what distinguishes confidence from chatter, literature from entertainment, and philosophy from sophistry: by the part of silence they contain or reveal.
Speech, at least the kind I love, is not meant to break silence, but to express it, celebrate it, share it!
Saisi
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