(no subject)
Have you ever actually heard silence?
It starts out very quiet. As you would expect, of course.
After a few seconds you start to notice all the sounds you wouldn't normally notice with the hustle and bustle of the day and all it's activities. The hum of the computer as it sits idle in the next room, the rattle in the radiators as a car drives down your street, the creaking noises a house makes as it settles in - like the rest of your family - for the night. Tiny things that get lost in the cacophone of music, talking, moving, and everything else that goes on when everyone is awake. They start out barely audible, but, the more you listen, the louder they get, until you'd swear they were even louder than your music was earlier in the car.
That lasts for a few seconds, maybe a minute.
Then something strange starts to happen. These tiny yet large noises start to get drowned out. Not by a new, louder noise - say, someone waking up and getting a drink from the kitchen, or the telephone ringing.
What starts to drown them out are the worst things possible. Your thoughts. It starts out innocently enough - what you ate for dinner, reminding yourself to go to the bank to get some cash for gas tomorrow - but innocence soon turns to deviousness. When you let your mind go like that the simplest thought can turn into a potential nightmare, and soon you find your mind rattling through all of the dark things that are normally kept out of the forefront.
All of your worries - big and small - start to rear their ugly heads and transform into fears. This only brings out the other fears, the ones you've hidden away and promised yourself not to bring into daylight again because you can't bear to think about them. One after another they pound their way through your mind and it's like you can hear each and every one of them. They scream at you and taunt you and whisper maliciously in your ear. One fear after another until they all start to run together. No longer can you decipher one from the next. They loom up and become this horrible buzzing sound. Sometimes it's a ringing - I'm sure everyone knows that one.
It gets louder and louder until your throat closes up and your eyes shut tight, anything to try and keep them away, kick them out of your head. But all at once you start to feel as if your ears will cave in and the only thing you can think of to do to drown them all out is scream. But you can't scream because the silence is too precious, too little embraced, too little found. On top of that you don't want to wake up the rest of your sleeping family, who are doing the normal thing and taking the time of silence to be in that unconcious state where you don't have to listen to all those fears.
So instead you open your eyes, unclench your fists, and sigh.
And it doesn't make everything go away. But at least you can be left in peace for one more night.
Until the next time you have nothing to do but listen to the silence.
It starts out very quiet. As you would expect, of course.
After a few seconds you start to notice all the sounds you wouldn't normally notice with the hustle and bustle of the day and all it's activities. The hum of the computer as it sits idle in the next room, the rattle in the radiators as a car drives down your street, the creaking noises a house makes as it settles in - like the rest of your family - for the night. Tiny things that get lost in the cacophone of music, talking, moving, and everything else that goes on when everyone is awake. They start out barely audible, but, the more you listen, the louder they get, until you'd swear they were even louder than your music was earlier in the car.
That lasts for a few seconds, maybe a minute.
Then something strange starts to happen. These tiny yet large noises start to get drowned out. Not by a new, louder noise - say, someone waking up and getting a drink from the kitchen, or the telephone ringing.
What starts to drown them out are the worst things possible. Your thoughts. It starts out innocently enough - what you ate for dinner, reminding yourself to go to the bank to get some cash for gas tomorrow - but innocence soon turns to deviousness. When you let your mind go like that the simplest thought can turn into a potential nightmare, and soon you find your mind rattling through all of the dark things that are normally kept out of the forefront.
All of your worries - big and small - start to rear their ugly heads and transform into fears. This only brings out the other fears, the ones you've hidden away and promised yourself not to bring into daylight again because you can't bear to think about them. One after another they pound their way through your mind and it's like you can hear each and every one of them. They scream at you and taunt you and whisper maliciously in your ear. One fear after another until they all start to run together. No longer can you decipher one from the next. They loom up and become this horrible buzzing sound. Sometimes it's a ringing - I'm sure everyone knows that one.
It gets louder and louder until your throat closes up and your eyes shut tight, anything to try and keep them away, kick them out of your head. But all at once you start to feel as if your ears will cave in and the only thing you can think of to do to drown them all out is scream. But you can't scream because the silence is too precious, too little embraced, too little found. On top of that you don't want to wake up the rest of your sleeping family, who are doing the normal thing and taking the time of silence to be in that unconcious state where you don't have to listen to all those fears.
So instead you open your eyes, unclench your fists, and sigh.
And it doesn't make everything go away. But at least you can be left in peace for one more night.
Until the next time you have nothing to do but listen to the silence.