Your title reminded me of an SNL sketch several years ago where a therapist's answer to every client's issue was, as they looked plaintively into her eyes, "Get over yourself!" Thanks for the memories.
Your post also reminded me of the Stoic idea that desiring nothing is the precondition to being free. Again, thank you.
I have recently become entranced by a quote from Tom Hanks in "Cast Away." At the end of the movie, facing a decision about how he should proceed with his life, he says, "Tomorrow the sun will rise, and who knows what the tide will bring."
Remembering that earlier, on his wretched island, the tide brings him the remnants of the walls of a Port-a-potty. This becomes the basis of his escape and ultimate rescue. Life so often appears to be manageable if only we work hard enough and be as smart as we can be. Then, events come to pass that blow all that away.
Rereading Erling Kågge his book Silence: In the Age of Noise.
When we sit in silence for a time, the mud that tends to fill our waking minds begins to settle more, and the water becomes clearer so we can see what lies lurking in its depths. To stop thinking, stop planning, stop dreaming and so to make space that allows something new to arise. For only when the mind is quiet, when it is not buzzing with thoughts, can we hear the still, small voice of insight. And it is this idea, that a bit of quiet is essential to life.
Learning to sit in silence is not about fighting the noise in our heads, but tolerating the self without fuss or commentary. Carl Rogers noted a paradox when he said that it is only by accepting ourselves as we are that we can change. We can learn. This may sound slightly sentimental, but it is hard to refute. If we never let the noise die down, the constant barrage of endless nonstop ramblings and attacks on our nation, the people, all in which he is requiring us all to accept it as it is, then nothing new can surface. Nor can those quieter emotions like wonder, of love, or awe, or surprise surface. It is hard to write of this without sounding pious; but these are the kinds of feelings of making a life liveable so perhaps they deserve a little respect.
Just speaking of inner silence: that mental emptiness that we rather counter-intuitively call mindfulness. Outer quiet simply helps: it is easier for our thoughts to settle in a forest, or in a snowy expanse, or in the early morning. But the silence with which Erling is concerned is a state, rather than a setting. With a bit of practice, we can learn to take it with us, even into the chaos of what it has been for a constant nineteen months of slamming at our own personal entrance or door to force it open by many just using a battering ram.
This week seems so heavy with loss. An unspeakable loss that words often allude. Needed the quiet time, to even embrace or digest.. we move on. Yet will say so tired of being tired. Perhaps that is what makes Erling’s take on silence so compelling. He is not selling us a retreat from the evils of modernity, but a means of finding peace and wisdom within it.
Browning: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp/or what's a heaven for?" The reach for the spiritual enlightenment being the most elusive and rewarding.
Your title reminded me of an SNL sketch several years ago where a therapist's answer to every client's issue was, as they looked plaintively into her eyes, "Get over yourself!" Thanks for the memories.
Your post also reminded me of the Stoic idea that desiring nothing is the precondition to being free. Again, thank you.
I have recently become entranced by a quote from Tom Hanks in "Cast Away." At the end of the movie, facing a decision about how he should proceed with his life, he says, "Tomorrow the sun will rise, and who knows what the tide will bring."
Remembering that earlier, on his wretched island, the tide brings him the remnants of the walls of a Port-a-potty. This becomes the basis of his escape and ultimate rescue. Life so often appears to be manageable if only we work hard enough and be as smart as we can be. Then, events come to pass that blow all that away.
Genius!
Rereading Erling Kågge his book Silence: In the Age of Noise.
When we sit in silence for a time, the mud that tends to fill our waking minds begins to settle more, and the water becomes clearer so we can see what lies lurking in its depths. To stop thinking, stop planning, stop dreaming and so to make space that allows something new to arise. For only when the mind is quiet, when it is not buzzing with thoughts, can we hear the still, small voice of insight. And it is this idea, that a bit of quiet is essential to life.
Learning to sit in silence is not about fighting the noise in our heads, but tolerating the self without fuss or commentary. Carl Rogers noted a paradox when he said that it is only by accepting ourselves as we are that we can change. We can learn. This may sound slightly sentimental, but it is hard to refute. If we never let the noise die down, the constant barrage of endless nonstop ramblings and attacks on our nation, the people, all in which he is requiring us all to accept it as it is, then nothing new can surface. Nor can those quieter emotions like wonder, of love, or awe, or surprise surface. It is hard to write of this without sounding pious; but these are the kinds of feelings of making a life liveable so perhaps they deserve a little respect.
Just speaking of inner silence: that mental emptiness that we rather counter-intuitively call mindfulness. Outer quiet simply helps: it is easier for our thoughts to settle in a forest, or in a snowy expanse, or in the early morning. But the silence with which Erling is concerned is a state, rather than a setting. With a bit of practice, we can learn to take it with us, even into the chaos of what it has been for a constant nineteen months of slamming at our own personal entrance or door to force it open by many just using a battering ram.
This week seems so heavy with loss. An unspeakable loss that words often allude. Needed the quiet time, to even embrace or digest.. we move on. Yet will say so tired of being tired. Perhaps that is what makes Erling’s take on silence so compelling. He is not selling us a retreat from the evils of modernity, but a means of finding peace and wisdom within it.
Great readings. Thanks for sharing.
Browning: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp/or what's a heaven for?" The reach for the spiritual enlightenment being the most elusive and rewarding.