The Power of Silence

What did you not say yesterday? Were there things you wish you had said but held back? Did you corral certain words, certain sentences, and hold them for another opportunity? Were some thoughts pushed below the surface, allowed to be changed with time, perhaps to be forgotten forever? How many “I love you’s” went unsaid that would have healed an aching heart? As with sleep, you cannot store them and build a reserve to tap into at a later date. Their power, their balming effect, quickly dissipates with disuse. They work only in the moment that they were intended. Left idle, their potential is gone, the object of their delivery untouched by kindness, by tenderness.

“I love you.” It is so simple to say. Three words. There are many other opportunities to say them, but none more important and possessing more potential than now. Words can have the opposite effect if left unsaid, almost as if they were spoken as opposites. Silence can equal the opposite. “I love you” unsaid can become “I don’t love you” out loud. Your most tender and endearing thoughts, if not allowed to fly free from the prison of your mind, may silently tell someone that you don’t care. How many times has your silence told your partner or child that you didn’t love them? How often has an unsaid word created the opposite effect? Think of all the lives that would have been changed had armies of sentences been allowed to roam free. Those who go through life cloaked in spoken endearments, wrapped and comforted in the voiced love of others, are truly blessed. The power of the spoken word is mighty. The power of silence can be mightier still.

Countless millions of words have been written and spoken since the beginning of human history. A total of all the words in all the libraries of the world, past and present, and every word of every conversation, idle chatter, lecture, broadcast, and speech in history would be dwarfed by the vast legions of words left unsaid, those rendered impotent by silence. Not that it is a good thing to instantly speak every thought that comes to mind: chaos would ensue. We have to be selective of our words and deliver them into the pattern of conversation where appropriate; however, it is our mental editing that isolates certain words and thoughts as unspeakable, and sentences them to die (pun intended).

Words can change the world. They can incite, torture, kill, comfort, heal, encourage, humiliate, anger, inspire, sadden, give joy, make one laugh, and they can forever change one’s life. There are many kinds of words: “In other words,” four-letter-words, words that are read, words to make you blue; there is the spoken word, the written word, the forgotten word; we put words in someone’s mouth, and we don’t have the words to express…. Words, words, everywhere, and not a thought to speak. And the unsaid words—oh, how they could have changed the course of history! Would they have altered the destructive lives of John Wilkes Booth, Adolph Hitler, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jeffrey Daumer, or the Son of Sam? Would the unspoken “I love you’s” have given them a new lease on life had those three words been bestowed upon them?

The power of words and their silent cousins: “What did you say?” “Nothing.” Think of the consequences had that “nothing” actually been, “I was wrong. I’m sorry. I apologize and want to make it up to you.” Instead, a relationship was probably hurt forever, or even eventually terminated. “Ouch, that hurts,” if left unsaid, can become one of many familiar wedges in a marriage, or any relationship. Not expressed, it can fester inside, becoming worse and much larger over time than it originally was. It also will accumulate other unsaid “ouches,” and grow to become a very powerful “I hate your guts.” It can eat at one’s insides if not voiced. Actually, its release will help the relationship; its incarceration will destroy.

Don’t withhold. Let the hostages go. Release the words while they still hold their meaning. Release them before they change in silence. The loneliest place in the world, more desolate and forbidding than the blackest cell of any prison, is a silent marriage/partnership. All the city lights from Manhattan to Bangkok could probably be powered by the turbulent energy of the silent, but unrelenting, dialogues churning in the minds of an unhappy couple. And it would be possible, as well, to freeze solid the oceans of the world by the dynamics between the two.

Allow your thoughts to be heard. You are the most powerful person on earth. You alone possess the ability to change your world, make friends, and influence people. You have the key. Use your words for good. They can help you. Don’t withhold them, for in their muted state they can turn on you. Life is a fine balance of releasing the right words in the right order at the right time, and deciding which words are truly better left unsaid.

© 2001 Stuart Vail

From God’s Lips To My Ear

I got to thinking about lines the other day — straight lines, specifically. By definition, a line is straight, but as I pondered the many kinds of lines in nature, I realized that very few are truly straight. Take, for example, a route between two cities, as the crow flies. If you marked a line on a map with a ruler (see “The Tsar’s Thumb”) between Moscow and St. Petersburg, or between San Francisco and Chicago, it would be straight on the two-dimensional surface of the map, but in reality it would bend with the curvature of the earth.

A beam of light traveling at 186,000 miles per second through space would seem to be nature’s perfect example of a straight line; however, its path would be compromised by many influences, such as atmospheric disturbances, gravitational fields, and no less a force than Albert Einstein himself (he proved that a straight line in space is actually a curve). And speaking of gravity, one would think that Newton’s earth-bound apple would fulfill the conditions of our search. Had Galileo possessed the means to conduct his Newton-inspired Leaning Tower experiment from a much greater height, such as five miles, he would have seen a variation in the falling objects’ paths. The rotation of the earth around its own axis and accompanying weather systems would create a set of conditions which would affect the gravitational attempt at creating a straight line.

I realized that in nature there are only two examples I could think of that would qualify as being truly straight. One is the earth’s axis. When it comes to a spinning planet, there is zero tolerance for any deviation. The line from the north pole to the south must be straighter than an unplucked banjo string. Anything less would create an irritating wobble in our journey from A.M. to P.M., and from equinox to solstice. Certainly the earth’s axis is as straight as they come.

The other example is one that I learned from my experience as a father. Aside from the axis of a heavenly body, there is no other line straighter than the connection between a toddler’s brain and his tongue. I have never seen a more direct and immediate route than the super highway linking the conception of a child’s thought to the voiced delivery. No sooner is the mere germ of an idea formed in the young one’s gray matter than it bursts forth into the world in all its raw, uncensored, and often embarrassing glory. No editing there. For a child, no standards, rules of etiquette, or even vehement warnings can keep a good thought down. There is nothing more bare, basic, or shameless in its nakedness than an observation voiced by a three-year-old in a large company of adults. The little one will comment on anything, from the size of the boss’ nose to the funny smell that eventually gets blamed on the dog. No amount of shushing can squelch his honesty. Nothing or no one is safe, and everything and everyone is fair game.

From brain to tongue there are no side trips, no extra stops to check for propriety, no deletions. A child says it as it is. Adults will “brooch a subject,” “beat around the bush,” and “side-step the issue.” We cite examples and use allegories, paradigms, and parables to illustrate a point. We have created all sorts of devices to talk around the issues without really committing to anything. A political candidate can speak for hours without giving a clue as to which side of the fence his legs are dangling. White male politicians, on realizing they need the black vote to get elected, quickly manufacture a few new platform planks that they think will appeal to those constituents. A read of a “wet finger in the wind” determines their position that day on abortion, a school bond issue, or a presidential impeachment.

How quickly we lose the honesty of a child as we mature. In growing up we learn the tricks of the trade in the verbal arena. Honesty takes a back seat to ulterior motives and disguising our thoughts and intentions. White lies and deceptions form the plots of most sitcoms on television, and we love it. We live in a climate of excuses, irresponsibility, unaccountability, and buck passing. People cannot commit to policies, positions, relationships, or above-board courses of action.

Maybe we should obtain some absolute, concrete opinions from our truly grounded three-year-olds. Hey, Mickey! If we could only speak what is in our hearts right then and there: a straight line to the tongue. No detours to evaluate what others may think. No changing our minds mid-stream to accommodate changing attitudes and agenda. Let’s all take a lesson from our straight-arrow young folk and be a little more honest with the world and ourselves, and speak our minds for a change. The Jews have a saying, “From God’s lips to my ear.” You can’t be more direct than that — unless you are a three-year-old.

© 2002 Stuart Vail

No Pain, No Gain

Pain: that not-so-subtle messenger that reminds us that we are alive. Last night my wife was very much alive. She suffered the aftermath of a root canal, or a badly-done root canal. Either there was still more infection or the temporary crown was set too high — it doesn’t matter — pain was there in all its glory: center stage, in-your-face, rock’n’roll, screamin’ the blues, triple-A, blue ribbon, first-class pain. Now, she can handle most pain; her threshold is amazing. Last night was different, though. I couldn’t imagine enduring that kind of agony. When I have my headaches and back problems, I can’t live with myself. Either will immobilize me. I’m a wimp in the “it hurts” department.

Women, in general, have a greater tolerance for pain than men. Imagine a man going through childbirth. If it were our role to give birth, we would become extinct after the last of our generation. But is pain something that is ever-present in all of us? Do natural antibodies and immune agents numb us to the constant grinding of joints, expanding and contracting of muscles, pulling of ligaments and tendons, and rushing of blood through stretching arteries and veins? Does it actually hurt to carry around all this weight? How about having a sac of hydrochloric acid constantly churning, grinding, and chemically breaking-down food right inside of us? Or when that sac is empty, what about the pain of the acid contacting nothing but our own tissue?

Maybe, as long as our immune system is healthy, we are deadened to all the pain that is always just below the surface. A slight dip in our immuno-levels could very suddenly make us aware of a headache, a cramp, a stomach ache, or any other symptom of the biological violence that is going on all the time, just below our conscious radar. Then on top of all that we add the pain of hard labor, stress, accidents, surgery, disease, and the disuse of joints and muscles from a sedentary life. For all that, we need synthetic pain relievers to add to what is already working overtime inside of us. We gobble copious amounts of aspirin, Ibuprofin, Acetaminophen, codeine, Valium, alcohol, sleeping pills — anything to deaden the pain of our raw screaming nerves.

What is pain? What is original pain? Was it in the death of Abel? The pain of Cain lies mainly in the plain. His brother feels no pain. He crossed the ultimate threshold. Pain is for the living, the survivors. Sometimes the worst pain is fear, loss, heartbreak, being let down, disappointment, failure. But no pain, no gain. They say that in athletics. Pumping iron actually tears the muscles. Bulk is attained through those muscles healing and then being retorn again and again on a regular basis. How about in relationships? Can we really appreciate a good marriage without having experienced a failed one? Is the deeper the hurt, the greater the balm? Will having survived a decade of marital agony make the next relationship better? In my case it did. It’s not a matter of constantly comparing, but I can fully appreciate respect, courtesy, love, and having someone who truly has a concern for my personal and creative endeavors. The terrible pain of the past is now just a memory, thanks to the great healer “time” and my new marriage.

I see young kids holding hands, kissing, dating, and going through all the necessary rituals of adolescence. For them, this is it: this boyfriend or girlfriend is the one with whom they will spend the rest of their lives. This person is the embodiment of forever. What they don’t realize is that the person in their arms may be their introduction to the world of emotional pain — a first-class, front-row ticket to Hell. According to statistics, in most cases this person will either forget them, be disloyal to them, fall out-of-love with them, abuse them, beat them, emotionally destroy them, or perhaps even kill them. The high-school-sweetheart relationship that succeeds is a rare one. And that’s not to say that the ones that do succeed are pain-free. Pain is a very necessary part of the health of the relationship. The strength gained from rising above and conquering the pains of living can only reinforce the union.

No pain, no gain. Kids have to survive the agonies of heartbreak for the next relationship. Some aren’t strong enough. A schoolmate of mine blew his brains out over a failed love affair, and he was only seventeen at the time. What a cruel, painful time of life that can be: the pain of friendships, the pain of love, the pain of parents’ expectations, the pain of not being accepted, the pain of losing one’s friends when moving to a new school. In addition to the parents bearing their own scars from growing up, they suffer the pain of their children, the pain of their jobs, the pain of money problems, their own failures, lost dreams, and . . . .

Guess what? Kids, it’s all ahead of you: broken marriages, unemployment, debt, estrangement from your children, lawsuits, sickness, death — pain everywhere. That’s life. But the mountain peaks make the valleys all worthwhile: The triumph of bliss over loss. We need to expand those moments of bliss so that they outnumber and eventually cover the valleys of pain. The triumph of the human spirit is nature’s natural pain killer.

© 2002 Stuart Vail