Ever since 2000 from time to time I tend to go quiet. Not intentionally, it seems to just happen that way. This year it has happened after a few life events that seemed to occur back-to-back. The writings for Father’s Day seemed to take a lot of emotional strength. Writing is not an exercise, but in many ways giving birth to a form on paper (or in this case digitally). Those events were not good nor were they bad they were neutral. Yet, I have felt the need to go silent.  Over the past few weeks it seems as I have been on an extreme rollercoaster. Life events seems to speed up to 100 mph, charge high up into the heavens,  peak,  and  then running out of energy and dropping;  leveling out just like the old Cyclone in Coney Island things seem to rattle and shake loudly but never dips fortunately.

Whenever I feel this way I go silent. Prior to 2000 I would go silent because I was tired or depressed. Now I go silent just to check my compass. As I have touched on before, 2000 was a very pivotal year in my life. I was engaged in a battle of mortality. I was irradiated and pumped full of poison, lost my hair, was quasi-homeless, and was pretty much alone to my own devices. In the darkness of the nausea, the weakness of body, the loss of spirit, the troubling solitude and physical and mental pain of the experience I found the ability within myself to go silent.

Going silent is the ability for me to “reset” myself. Silence allows me to detach from my physical surrounding and attempt to find peace within myself. Silence allows me to focus, clarify, and prioritize my life. Silence strips away the materialism, the selfishness, the pretension of the world I live in and allows me to find direction and value in myself and the relationships I have.

Prior to 2000 I interacted with hundreds of people. My phone book was large and I was always in motion. Going to a party here, there, everywhere, it was in these crowds of people I still felt alone. The mundane rituals of “chit-chat” seemed artificial and superficial, because at the end of the day or party when I grew tired of a person’s presence I always seemed to orchestrate their removal or my removal.

After 2000 I do not interact with hundreds of people. My phone book is not large. I tend to don’t party often. By being silent with myself during my struggle for mortality I discovered value in relationships. I found peace within myself. I value the infinitesimal elements of the cadre of people in my life. I weigh my words and every word has a meaning whether the person is actually listening or not. Every action has a meaning; things are not black or white they sometimes live in the gray but the intent is clear.

Everyone in my life has an intrinsic value for me. The word love is not a curse word in my lexicon. Yet, going silent taught me that to truly communicate sometimes it is better to write and act and not talk.  Writing is an act, writing is precise, and writing is felt. Talk however, is just a cacophony of sounds, subject to interpretation and can be cold.

Going silent allows me to detach from the physical thoughts of the world. Recharge my spirit. Keep my heart open to those I care for deeply. Keep me from becoming too jaded by this world. Most importantly, going silent allows me to continue to hold love and hope for all of us imperfect children of humanity.