The Answer of Silence

Silence.

Not the kind that fills you with peace, but the one that makes an incessant and intolerable sound; almost noise. The one that does not give you that conventional sense of peace. It is not the screeching sound of a braking vehicle, nor the howling of a banshee. Just a continuous inconsistent array of myriad noises that will not follow any perceptible order.

This silence is an impostor of its cousin — the silence that is known to ooze a sense of tranquility, even if there is sound around. Like the sound of the lazy roar of the sea or the vague whispers of the wind in between the hills in the valley.

A good impostor, at that.

But the good cousin is so overrated that the impersonation is worth forgiving. Where the impostor lives – in the same place that you do, this is the best possible silence that is possible. In any case, since we seek silence outside of us, the sounds always remain. We just legitimise a few, while bastardise the others.

And more often than not, the logic to legitimise one over the other is an inheritance of a borrowed experience. We compel our hearts to enjoy the dull roar and the vague whispers. Because someone said so, once upon a time and we live their experience once and then we live it over and over again. And we do a good job of it. We have logic and repeated experiences that prove it so — innumerable experiences in which we have continuously conditioned ourselves to believe in the borrowed truth.

No wonder, our quest for peace is always without, never within.