“The Sound of Silence” ~ The Sound of My Day

Ah, yes, Darkness, my old friend, who frequently travels with Sorrow and Despair. Have you come to visit me once more in my restless nights and in the walking alone through this life? Yes?

Marvelous.

It truly boggles my mind that people would rather endure the oppressive nature of swallowing their truth and biting their tongue than speak up.

Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m guilty of it too because I know I edit myself to stay within what is right depending on the situation or to protect my interests, never crossing certain lines, but it hurts me to my core to know I’m staying silent for the sake of what is right out of respect for another’s situation when my truth remains unsaid. But the fact is that as a society we have learned to fall into two categories:

The over sharing of the attention seeking social media junkie: “I just ate the best avocado toast after the most amazing goat yoga and I’m going to drink the protein shake I hustle on the side to show you all how cool I am before telling you about the interesting trip I took to the bathroom… P.S. My significant other is better than your significant other and I love them to the moon and back!” These talk incessantly without ever speaking anything of merit or value and too involved in their own struggle to worry about the struggle of the Other so if they do hear another, they are not listening.

The silence of never speaking one’s truth or feelings for any reason. We each have words, feelings, emotions, stories to tell, passions, fears, and when they remain unspoken, they trap us and bind us with them in the darkness where our light is never seen or in the desert where our soul withers and our words are spoken to none but the blowing sands, writing songs that voices never share.

The problem with both ends of this spectrum is that they both isolate us within relationships between individuals and within the crowd.

“The Sound of Silence”

Simon and Garfunkle, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, 1964

Songwriter: Paul Simon

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools” said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, “The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls”
And whispered in the sounds of silence