Silence is expensive

I like to immerse myself in things and get to know them deeply. I want to understand them way beyond just the surface. To the point where I can change them, express them, and connect them to other things I know. I feel like I’m building a universe where each galaxy compounds its neighbours.

I approach almost everything the same way. Cooking, lifting, hiking, fixing cars, language learning. I want to know the underlying system so deeply that instinct takes over.

We have finite time on this earth and it’s nice to not waste it. Or at least, waste it well. Lazy days, music festivals, doing nothing alone, and doing nothing with friends are all worth your time.

I kind of feel like I’m trying to find the substrate beneath things. If I know enough stuff deeply it’ll matter — privately — to me.

I spent a good amount of time in my twenties interrogating reality. Finding ways to alter my mind and try to understand the universe itself. This flowed into a daily meditation habit. I got good at silencing my mind and just being. I even went on a ten day silent meditation retreat, aching for hours in some rictus of the lotus position — at times the mind screaming for relief from the torture of… not doing much. At other times feeling the subtle bliss of life. Listening to strange chants, washing my clothes in a sink, walking through a forest, silent. It was hard. Like an army bootcamp for the mind. Tougher than it should’ve been, yet just as simple and mundane as any other part of life. The way conversation feels after 10 days of silence is interesting. Like a gushing, bubbling sensation straight from the heart. One of those things you can’t experience without sacrifice and discipline. That most people don’t experience because silence is expensive.

I was searching for magic and I found nothing. And it was profoundly unprofound.

I’ve trudged over mountains carrying a heavy pack, tracing the route that filters people from SAS selection. Because I want to find that fire inside myself. Dragging yourself to the peak of a mountain, twice, with shoulders aching, allowing yourself a break every twenty steps on the second ascent but never giving up. One foot in front of the other. Keep looking further up the route, not at the ground. I don’t know why but it helps. Pick a point, make it there and pick another.

Maybe the meditation helped — it had a lot in common with the retreat.

Watching the gauge move past empty into unmarked space. The thrill of getting away with it. The sudden coughing of the engine yet it roars back to life for a few more precious moments. Then it’s gone — rolling to a stop. Trying to figure out if someone might lend you enough to fill it back up just a bit or if you need to walk home and come back later.

Human kindness shines in these situations. People jumping out of their cars to help push me down the road to get fuel. The terrifying fun of being young, poor and in search of adventure.

It’s kind of cool how wildly varied our lives are. Look around and we’re all just the tips of icebergs, rolling around in the ocean. Different edges breaking the surface at different times. And we mostly stay silent.