“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
― Rumi
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding…ding…ding…
The notifications – they’re endless.
Our generation craves engagement, be it visual, auditory or otherwise. We are constantly scrolling through feeds on social media, watching TV series and listening to music on our earphones literally wherever we go.
There is this inherent fear of… nothing. We are terrified at the idea of having no photos to look at, nothing to watch and nothing to listen to. The second there is a lull in activity – when all the Snap stories have been viewed, the Instagram and Facebook feeds thoroughly scrolled through - we get restless and our fingers itch to fulfill our craving for stimulation.
We are a population of young people who have forgotten the beauty of silence. We have forgotten how to ponder, self-reflect and be alone with our minds. This is largely due to the fact that the culture we live in encourages and perhaps even requires us to constantly intake large amounts of information. Regardless of what industry you’re in, things move fast. The average millennial is also expected to have a certain level of common knowledge with regards to pop culture, politics and social issues.
I often say that the way we consume information is similar to how dogs eat ice cream: In one huge gulp and without really tasting it. Instead of taking the time to let whatever we just heard or saw simmer in our heads and be properly absorbed, we hastily compartmentalize it and start looking for more. As a result, we skim the surface without delving deep.
The problem with this is that we miss out on so much.
We miss out on the beautiful way the cameraman filmed the scene because we are on our phones, just listening to what’s happening to keep up with the plot.
We miss out on the painstakingly crafted buildup because we always fast forward to when the beat drops.
We miss out on the author’s carefully chosen words because we speed read, impatient to find out how the book ends.
We miss out on how the wind feels against our bodies and the way the sunlight filters through the leaves because we are preoccupied with choosing a song and tracking how many calories we’ve burned on this jog so far.
We miss out on breathtaking sunrises because we stay up late getting drunk, content to just scroll through Instagram in bed the morning after and see this incredible phenomenon of Mother Nature’s in a tiny square on our phones.
We miss out on the way our loved ones laugh and breathe because we are too busy getting annoyed at the little things that they do.
It might be a little theatrical of me to say, but this really breaks my heart. There is so much more for us – it’s all right there and it’s all free. We just need to learn how to slow down, make friends with this fearful thing called silence and simply exist.
Your silence is valuable; it’s important. We should all reconsider the things we pay attention to and decide how much they’re worth breaking our silence for.
