In our daily lives, there is little silence.  Almost every moment is consumed by something; whether it is music, work, radio, television, the list goes on.  However, we should still remember the importance of silence.

Silence can be deafening.

It’s ironic, but life is full of those ironies.  Like being alone in a crowd.

Example: In music, a composer will write in silence to emphasize a loud part immediately following.  Hey, John Cage wrote 4’33″ with a lot of silence.  Interesting tune.

Most important, silence forces us to think.  It forces us to listen, both to God and ourselves.

I think we should take some time to be silent.  Take time to quiet what we do most often.  If we can take a step back from our projects, from our daily grid, you never know what you just might find.

For example, I took some time to myself (partially because I got sick, but we all need a push sometimes) and sat down to read a book.  It was a book I never thought I’d enjoy.  Boy was I wrong.  I finished the whole novel in less than 3 days.  Usually it takes me a week at least.  I’ve found another book I love, and I’ve found a few more tricks to use in my own writing.

You can’t run forever.  If you constantly pursue without relent you will burn out.  This is not changing focus or loosing passion.  Those are different.  Endurance runners don’t run every 100 meters in 10 seconds.  They would never make it the whole way.

Give yourself a little time to just sit.  Go to a park and watch the animals.  Go read a book you didn’t see before.  In order to be honest in our art, we need to overflow from our hearts.  If we’ve drained everything from our hearts by never taking a moment to be silent, we will not achieve anything but adding more noise.

If we are to be real in our art, then it should overflow from our hearts.  If our hearts are never silent, we will only add more noise.

Posted via web from On Life, Stories, and Music