Many people believe they simply enjoy having hustle and bustle around them. They leave the television running in the background, reach for their phone in every free second, throw themselves into work, or look for the next stimulus.
I know this from myself. For a long time, it was not a zest for life — it was a flight from silence.
Because the moment the last sound around me fades away and I simply do nothing, I suddenly find myself standing in front of a mountain. Down in the noise of the valley, I could still avoid myself. But here, at the foot of silence, there is no escape anymore. Only the “I” remains. Unvarnished, without distraction, without a role, without excuses. Just me and the voices in my head.
Anyone who does not immediately turn around and flee back into the noise quickly realizes: the fear of silence behaves like climbing a mountain.
The first meters are steep and narrow. As soon as I put my phone away and allow myself to do nothing, things do not immediately become peaceful. On the contrary. With every step upward, the very things that were successfully drowned out in everyday life speak up — old reproaches, doubts, restlessness, unresolved questions. It almost takes my breath away, and more than once I wanted to turn back right on that first steep slope.
Yet the mountain of fear cannot be bypassed; it wants to be climbed through. When I neither run away nor numb myself, but climb step by step up through this inner restlessness, I eventually reach the ridge. The gasping stops, a cool breeze blows, and the light opens wide. I discover that on the other side of the mountain, no emptiness awaits, but the vast beauty of nature.
Up at the top, not everything is suddenly solved — but I see it differently.
When I have arrived out there in the open and sit quietly with my thoughts on a bench in the sun, I face the same choice every single time:
I can fight with myself and judge myself harshly. I can look for excuses for myself as to why things are the way they are.
Or I can “simply” be merciful to myself.
For me, this spaciousness in silence is my most important training ground today. In doing nothing, I practice on myself the exact things I also wish for in dealing with others: patience, gentleness, and an honest look without condemnation. Whoever constantly beats up on themselves in silence carries that harshness back down into the valley with them. Yet whoever learns to sit peacefully with their own shadows and blind spots out there in the quiet brings that peace back among people all by themselves later on.
Because what begins up in the silence does not stay there:
Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. (A modern traveling quote often attributed to the Talmud)
Destiny does not fall ready-made from the sky down in everyday life one day. It begins at the very top, at the start of the chain — with the single, invisible thought that no one else hears yet except me.
And I only meet that very first thought where I stop running away: in silence. When I learn to think mercifully with myself there, the word I speak changes, the action I choose changes — and in the end, the person who walks back down into the valley.
By René Jochum - LLM Translated. Photo: Mom. License: CC-BY-4.0.