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If one would try to comprehensively describe and identify the meaning of silence the first idea that would come to mind would be the opposite of noise or absence of noise. However a deeper look in this matter would lead to a more bizarre and peculiar understanding of the proper definition of silence. Silence is usually characterized by such attributes as stillness, peace and calmness and as everyone has a different and in at some point unique perception of those factors its real and personal qualities would be different for each person depending on their past lifetime experiences. I like silence.
I like walking at night when there is no one driving on our streets. I like walking through a cemetery. I like writing late at night when the house is fast asleep. When I lived in a Benedictine monastery for several days I felt most sorry to leave the silence they shared with me. When I listen to music I listen for silence and it is the silence in the music that gives the voice meaning. Call me morbid or absurd, but I also intuit that there is occasionally something silent in the plucking string of a mandolin, in the voice of a person, or in the sound of the wind.
This silence appears like a low and constant note ringing out before and above the noise and more often over the quiet that we seek. And I wont call it anything else but silence. Calm, tranquil, quiet, still, serene, hushed these dont describe accurately the experience that the word silent begins to define. I actually thought this way first while sitting on a bench in a cemetery. It was a few weeks ago when the 100 degree weather was just beginning to let up. There was a slight breeze in the air, and I sat looking at a tombstone across the path from me.
Her name was Florence, and she lived 17 years. Her parents and brother all lived full lives; they were buried around her. I dont know a thing about Florence, but I imagined her life. I think it was bright and sweet... and complete.
What a pretty name. She must have led a pretty life. And this is how I came to think of this silence. It is the silence of the dead whose voices, no matter how once-heard and still-remembered, now lie mute to our ears. In this way the silence is quite tragic, and it could be quite despairing.
Out of the silence of death this silence also echoes the cry of a living person in complete anguish. So, yes, the silence that I speak of is the silence of death and the anguish caused by fragility and loneliness. It is the silence of long-suffering men and women. It is the silence of people who recognize that the Christian God would have us nailed to a cross away from the living and speaking and close to those almost dead. We all share it. Moments when for some reason or for no reason at all we become suddenly aware that we have a true companion, someone to grieve with us.
Petting a dog or a guinea pig, eating a salad in an outdoor restaurant by yourself, taking marriage vows, yelling at someone in your family, praying in bed, shopping in K-Mart, eating Grapefruit with or without sugar, chewing tobacco, reading a book, contemplating your wrongs, writing, playing music with someone, remembering a past event, meeting someone you want to get to know better, working all these moments can suddenly turn crystal clear and fill us with the knowledge that we are loved and can return love. It is almost as if the day pauses for one split second and we are allowed to examine everything as it is. I would say such a moment is also profoundly silent. And it may change the direction of our desires.
The revelation is a gift just as the true anguish is a gift, yet we can always become better and more open receivers. I imagine and hope that Florence had these moments. Maybe she even had all the tragic and ecstatic moments of an 80 -year-old concentrated into her 17 years of life. Its not only in silence that this silence appears, as Ive already said. I am usually surprised and always pleased when I hear it in someones voice.
One hears it more often in the sounds of rain, wind, waves, and birds. Music because it is so human speaks the language of this silence more often than our words do as well. Sometimes all we have to do is tune our ears to the silence. Its a silence that no one makes a big deal about. Its pretty much categorized as the normal, unaffected part of life... And yet it is also special; it is something we must be still enough and fragile enough to hear.
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Research essay sample on Silence Of Death Silence Appears One
