Man controls his hours of activity if he knows how to enter into silence. The life of silence must be able to precede the active life.
CARDINAL ROBERT SARAH
For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man. He is able also with a bridle to lead about the whole body.
JAMES 3:2 DOUAY-RHEIMS
"Carlos Silencio" is the nickname I give to my alter ego that strives to remain silent in a world full of noise and distraction. I joke that I am a third order Trappist who goes around keeping his mouth shut. Aside from this blog, I talk as little as possible in the real world. My goal is to emulate the silence of Saint Joseph.
Why have I chosen this path of silence? I think it was chosen for me. Because of my brain injury, I have trouble with my speech. I can only talk briefly. Even texting taxes my damaged brain, so I refrain from doing that now. I tend to talk too much when I speak, but I run out of mental energy before I run out of words. The results are always a disaster. Remaining silent has become my best option in all situations. I live a reclusive and semi-monastic existence these days.
I have to see this as God's will for my life. He has willed my silence. Practicing silence is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. When I yield to the temptation to speak, I regret it every time. It isn't that the things that I say don't matter. They just don't matter to a world that doesn't listen. I have learned that no one listens to me until I stop speaking. When I do speak, they stop listening. This comes from what Cardinal Sarah calls "the dictatorship of noise." Basically, our godless society uses technology, distraction, entertainment, social media, and whatnot to avoid an authentic encounter with the divine in their daily lives. We ignore other people, and we ignore God. We are too busy for all of that. Then, we are dead.
For the person who is always busy, silence seems like a gigantic waste of time. I know that I used to think this way. I was a prisoner of the dictatorship of noise in my life. A better way to think about it is the "dictatorship of distraction." I have never lived on my device like the smartphone zombies who can't break away from their electronic boxes to drive a car or even walk down the street. My "drug" of choice when it came to distraction was work. I was a workaholic living high on what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
refers to as "flow." I was a flow addict. Flow is the opposite of silence.
We find contemplation in silence. Where else would we find it? Work can be a time of contemplation if we offer the work up to God as a prayer. I like to think that I was doing this, but I wasn't. For me, work was offered up to myself as a form of entertainment. If you have ever played an exciting video game, that feeling of flow that comes from immersion in that activity approximates what I felt at work. I called it "workahol." Unlike alcohol, being inebriated on workahol allows you to keep your job and even prosper. I considered it to be a positive addiction except there is no such thing. All addictions have as their ultimate aim to silence the voice of God in our lives. It is part of the noise.
I was gamifying my life. Then, the game ended for me in a nasty accident that left me with brain damage. My life has been given to silence ever since. I am a stubborn man, and I have resisted this bridle that God has put in my mouth and the monastic cell that He has created for my life. Much of my life is spent in a dark room with my eyes closed. When the silence becomes too much, I listen to the radio. When I become overstimulated in my life, I have to retreat to my dark place to recharge my battery. I sleep 12 to 15 hours per day. When I am not asleep, I have learned to remain off the box (the internet) until nighttime after I have done my vital chores and errands for the day. Sometimes, those chores and errands deplete the battery, and I forget the box completely.
The dictatorship of noise takes away my energy now. I have found that I have more energy when I refrain from talking or texting on the phone. My writing also depletes my energy which is why I refrain from blogging except on Sundays and rain days. Sunday is the Lord's Day which is when we refrain from servile labor. Rain days prevent me from doing my daily hour of work in my yard and garden.
Writing is a form of contemplation for me. It is tiring, but writing forces me to think and meditate. Naturally, I think about God but not always. The irony of this post is that I am spilling many words about being silent. Ultimately, you have to shut your mouth, step away from the keyboard, and put down the phone. If this scares you, you are addicted to the noise. People can't tolerate boredom which is the entry way into silence. Boredom is the price of admission to this life of contemplation. Once you pay this price, you find yourself calming down. This is because the dictatorship of noise still exists within ourselves.
The dictum to "pray without ceasing" amounts to calming that inner noise and turning our minds over to contemplation. Reading a book or a blog post about silence is a spur to enter that life of silence, but silence is something you have to do and not merely read about. This is why we go on silent retreats. I have known I needed to go on one of these silent retreats until it struck me that I am already on retreat. My life is a retreat now. I live the life of a monk.
I have resolved to no longer fight the silence. This is what God wanted for me. I was already against the dictatorship of distraction with my use of a flip phone over a smartphone. God used my present state of tragedy to take me further into that place of solitude and silence. God gets our attention in the silence. He speaks to us when we actually listen. You can't listen to God while living under the dictatorship of distraction.
Meanwhile, the world has turned up the volume on the dictatorship of noise. No one wants to be alone with their own thoughts or with God. Yet, they desire the attention of others which requires turning up the volume even more. This explains the corrosive effect of social media on the culture. Everyone is trying to one up the other in making a bigger noise.
I don't do smartphones or social media. My time on the internet is constrained to the margins of my day, week, and life. I can tell a difference between myself and everyone else. I can sit for an hour before Mass with no distraction whatsoever. One lady in our parish can't take this and chatters ceaselessly before Mass. She does not bother me, but I feel sorry for her because of how she is cheating herself of the silent encounter with God.
I can sit in a doctor's waiting room for an hour with nothing but my thoughts as everyone taps and scrolls on electronic boxes. My only real trouble is the uncomfortable silence that happens in a social encounter when you feel a certain cringe that comes from the "dead air" of not talking. This isn't the radio. No one is going to change the channel when the sound stops. I have come to realize that these cringe moments are essential. No one is actually listening to each other. We might as well hum and whistle instead of talking.
The answer to the uncomfortable silence today is to whip out a box. Look at any bar, coffeehouse, or restaurant. The social spaces where people used to talk are now places where people scroll instead of talk. At some point, being there becomes pointless as it makes more sense to scroll at home while having everything delivered to your door. This would explain all of those empty fast food restaurants I see as I pass by.
Telling someone about the power of silence doesn't make much sense. It is like screaming at people to be quiet. Ultimately, you cannot transmit silence. We transmit noise. This transmission amounts to telling you, Gentle Reader, to turn off the transmission. Step away for a moment or a season and be still. Close your mouth and practice silence. Listen for God to speak to you in the silence.
Practicing silence on a regular basis is a lifestyle choice. It starts with eliminating the distractions. Begin with turning off the devices. Then, go outside and sit for a bit. Don't listen to music. Just be still. That is a good place to start.
UPDATE: One of the chief benefits of being silent is that it keeps you from the near occasions of sin that come from speaking too much. This would be things like gossip, slander, blasphemy, lying, and the like. The sins of the tongue are many, but the solution is simple. As much as possible, keep your mouth shut.
I cannot recall a time in my life when I regretted keeping my mouth shut and saying nothing. I cannot count the many times I regretted talking. Even when I am not sinning in my speech, I regret the time and words I have wasted speaking to the air which is what conversations with fools amounts to being.
Being silent is the challenge. There is no challenge in speaking. Talking is easy. Silence is hard. Practice silence until you are able to do it perfectly.
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The Dictatorship of Noise
"The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise" by His Eminence Cardinal Robert Sarah
How SILENCE can make you HOLY (excerpts from Cardinal Sarah)
Book Review: The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise by Cardinal Sarah