Writer's Block: Shhhh
I seldom take on "Writer's Block" questions, and when I do they tend to be in the middle of the night due to an occasional bout of mindf***ing insomnia. Tonight is no different. I flipped back through what had to be 20 or 30 topics before I came across this one and it sent my mind in 100 different directions.
I am known to many of my friends and family as the one that you can always count on to keep the conversation going. When I am on my "A" game I can talk about nearly anything in an intellectual fashion, and when intellect fails me I can easily fall back on humor. Being on the radio for 8 years has a tendency to give you split second wit that can easily break awkward silences or as we refer to them in the industry, “Dead Air.”
The first thought that entered my mind upon reading this topic is the times in my life when I have gotten tired of one person or another saying something to the effect of, "I bet you can't be quiet for 5 minutes!" I'm pretty sure this little gag started with my parents and/or siblings but I cant recall any specific examples. I can certainly remember a love interest or 2 using this line on me in an effort to shut me up.
Needless to say my pride always wins out and I manage to "shut up" for EXACTLY 5 minutes. I usually start the marathon with something along the lines of, "Alright...I'll shut up. But you may find I'm a lot less interesting when I'm quiet." When the 5 minutes is up I start right back on my path of talking non stop yet again.
The second visual I have is a little day in April called the "National Day of Silence." It's a day that through the silence of LGBT students everywhere brings attention to Anti-Gay name calling, harassment, bullying and all manner of homophobia. I have often wanted to participate (despite not being a student) because I believe it can do a lot of good. Think for just a moment what this world would be like if ALL of the GLBT voices were silent. Pretty quiet huh? We gay Christians have a joke, "If all of the gay men in America vanished off the face of the earth...churches all across the nation would be silent come Sunday morning!"
Being a radio personality has made participating in this day very difficult. If I don't talk, I don't work. So often times I have spoken about the event on the air while not participating in it myself...for obvious reasons. Now that I am not on the air I am planning to participate next year, but who knows what God has in store for me between now and then. You know the saying, "Even the best laid plans..."
The topic of this piece is whether or not I would go on a silent retreat, and how long I think I could go without talking. This is yet another quandary for me. Think about your day to day life. I hate to go all "politician" on you but seriously, define "not talking."
We live in a world where talking has so many meanings its completely mind boggling! Just today I talked through the following methods:
Face to face, on the phone, text messaging, picture messaging, Skype (face to face via the web), instant messaging, blogging, Twitter-ing, Facebook-ing...and we know that the the list of communicative mediums available to us in the year 2009 goes ON and ON and ON!
As fast as our thumbs can move we can communicate with anyone in the world at the press of a button on any QWERTY keyboard and receive an instant response! Would a "silent retreat" render all of these messages silent? I know I personally go about bat s*** crazy if my BlackBerry is out of reach for even 5 minutes, let alone for hours or days! I check my laptop seemingly every 5 minutes if I am at home, and I'm constantly keeping up on current events via CNN.
Could I take a silent retreat from ALL of that noise!? I think it would be therapeutic to try. I am weak and I know a few of you reading this think there is no earthly way I could give all of that up for 24 hours. I think I could but I assure you that by the 59th minute of the 23rd hour I would have my hand on about 50 power buttons ready to reconnect myself to my chaotic existence.
Chaos...maybe that is the problem. Maybe I allow my "down-time" to be consumed with all of this "noise" so that I will feel important, and busy. After all, in our society you can't have one without the other. It would be nice to go 24 hours (or more *gasp*) not being busy. Maybe silence is a way to catch up with your own thoughts. Maybe after a day of communicating with no one but yourself (and God) one might find a clarity that seems to elude so many of us.
"Would you ever go on a silent retreat?" - No, because I would spend the whole time doing something I should be doing more of already...talking to myself.
"How long do you think you could go without talking?" - I'll let you know when it happens, for now...I must post this entry on my LiveJournal so it can post to the RSS feed and then off to Facebook where my friends can read and text me with their thoughts and...see...who am I to throw off the delicate balance of communication. Talking is necessary, but a break would be awesome.
Plus, think about how awesome 24 hours without “talking” would be as material for another blog?