The Sound of Silence

by Benji Raymond

"A bad word whispered will echo a hundred miles"
Chinese Proverbs

I recall my early days in the kindergarten sandpit where the kids would have a dandy time shouting and taunting the other kids. Children can in some ways be harsher than adults and so we were provided with a weapon, a defence shield that would be used in times of hurt. This weapon constituted phrases like “sticks and stone may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Sadly, and perhaps like so many others, at one stage as a kid I think I truly believed the saying. Maybe the reason we continue saying similar quotes throughout our lives is because we know deep down inside that it just isn’t true. Despite the phrase being untrue in the simplest and deepest of levels, and whether we repeat it out aloud or we repeat it silently to ourselves, it is often the only thing that helps us save face.

We all seem to learn similar sayings at a tender age and as we progress through life it becomes our little bible at attempting to stop the hurt that so often and unnecessarily comes our way. We continue saying it to ourselves almost in an attempt to try and imprint it into our brains. Nonetheless, one cannot deny the considerable damage we feel when powerful words are thrown at us. Punches have come my way and words have been directed at me and I can safely say that words sting more and they sting for longer.

"The right word may be effective,
but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause."
Mark Twain

I often use the analogy of a sore throat in an attempt to explain the significance of emotional hurt. Sometimes a sore throat can be so painful that if we were given one wish at that precise moment, a million dollars would go out the window and a healthy throat would be right there on the top of our list. Eventually, as the days progress, the sore throat becomes slowly but surely less and less painful and one day we wake up with an angelic voice. Since the sore throat became gradually less painful, by the time we’re fully health we tend to forget about the pain and the million dollar is right back up there on the list. Words tend to be the opposite. Words linger in the dust and become more powerful as time progresses. Words break families apart, they tear and scratch at the heart, they stretch the boundaries of friendships, they start wars, and they lead the certain onto uncertain paths.

"If silence be good for the wise, how much better for fools”
The Talmud

With the increasing use of technology, silence has become somewhat of a taboo term. We fear silence; the uncomfortableness associated with it, the constant need to keep sound waves floating through the air. We are ever-ready to provide our opinion on every subject and every issue we come across. The stillness that typically surrounds life is replaced with words and those words can often be quite tactless. The thought that is meant to go into words is too often lost these days. We forget that words can be hurtful and that others may be more sensitive than ourselves. Words slip through our minds and fall from our lips without a trace of thought. A newfound appreciation for silence can help limit or perhaps prevent this recipe for emotional hurt. This is not to say that we must not speak up when we ought to. There is a time for everything, but the thought involved in what we say should be forever present.

A Long December (Poetry)