A deep silence

 It was around 10 PM on a cold winter evening late at night. I was packing my books, my belongings and was about to head to the bedroom. I was thinking to myself.  I was planning that  I would finish this much topic by that day, that much questions by another day. And looking at the clock I thought to myself, I might squeeze in a few questions before I could sleep. It was my day off and a day off is a welcome to this working life. I had just given a major exam and was preparing for another series of major exams in the upcoming months. As I was collecting myself, something suddenly occurred to me. I felt something in this silence. Something deep. Something profound. Maybe this is it, I thought to myself.  As I fell back in my chair thinking to myself. Just me, myself, my book, my diary, a dim light and the silence. Maybe this is it. Something was speaking to me as the day was ending. Something has occurred within me. Something has changed. The paradigm has been shifted. As night deepened, I realized something has changed in this silence. In this deep silence. In this profound silence.  

There are times in life, where so many things are said, so many things are felt, so many things are heard just in silence. Silence is a powerful word, a powerful emotion, a powerful feeling. A vacuum where something doesn’t exist and the vacuum where we equally exist in this mighty space and time as we traverse between time and memory. As I look back, I remember fondly of those days where I used to play with the breaking stick that we used to broom with. I didn’t have toys then but I used to break that single paper thin stick into two halves making the less length part the hair and the more length part the body of the doll and used to play with. Even then when I used to play with that so-called doll, I used to imagine and dress that doll going to work, working so hard, travelling, reaching work, carrying with her a suitcase made up of a small lock (that would look like a briefcase in that small world). Being tired, working, living an adult life. Just thinking of it, i realize how my life right now has exactly turned like that unexpectedly as if I was manifesting. It is strange indeed. I smile at myself while writing this. As I remember I used to be very happy. I didn’t have much then but I used to amuse myself alone with very tiny things and with hours at end. My home itself is at the height of a hill. I would see beautiful views of hills surrounding us and houses beneath us and a road encircling the valley. And I would look at houses thinking the houses themselves like a person. With color, designs making each having their own personality. I would come from school and just look at the sky, the building, the hills for hours on end. The birds returned home in a bunch on a pink evening. Then the houses slowly would get covered in lights and would appear as dots of lights in the night on hill canvas, as night deepened slowly. I was amused, I was intrigued. I was entertained. I was very happy, I was calm. I felt enough. I was living my life fully.

As I slowly grew, technology grew. TV came, then computers. Then the internet. The playground times were cut shorter and the screen times grew longer. The silence once so cherished now became unbearable. The constant noise, the constant chatters and falling asleep to playing videos became the norm. The books became bigger, the responsibilities even bigger. Time appeared shorter as we rushed between work and home and the constant deadlines of reaching goals and again appearing farther because there were yet another set of new goals. 

Silence became dreadful. Silence became restless. Life became rushed. Life became miserable. As we switched between tasks,as we rushed between goals, places, directions, time. Noise became the norm, silence a foe. There was no time for it. Just no time. There was no time for anything because there was time for everything but us. 

I also have fallen to this miserable pit. I also had been afraid of this silence. I tried muffling it. Suppressing it, running from it, filling this void with so many things. I tolerated, I stayed,I overworked, I endured. I did anything and everything but did nothing to address it. 

And as night deepened, slowly this silence came unannounced, undreaded in a loving, gentle way. It came as a friend. It came as a reminder. It whispered in my ear that I had lived another day. I did well on my own. I may not have been that productive as the other day but I lived well on my own. It filled me. It reminded me how moments as mundane as it seemed to myself and others were so beautiful on their own. How in that exact moment, I was breathing, I had yet lived a day of my life, away from societal construct, in my own way, in my own world, without telling anyone, without the world knowing, as ordinary as it could get, it was special on its own. I felt happy. I felt calm. I did achieve something. 

Lately I had been thinking to myself, as restless as I grew of this silence, I had done so much harm to myself in between. I had stayed in places and situations trying to mend and amend, trying hard, trying yet again with whatever I could just to feel there was no silence. Only to find out I was well on my own. I was enough on my own. It was never about them. It was about me. As I reflect, maybe the misery that came time and again to me was there to tell me this lesson that I never learnt, so it came time and again just for me to pick up and learn this time because I had failed to learn all this time.I was searching for happiness everywhere else but here within me. Like how Santiago was searching for treasure all his life in the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. When it was here all alone. In this beautiful silence. The longest and most beautiful relationship that we will ever have is with ourselves. We are whole, complete on our own. We came alone, there will be places where we will go alone, there will be experiences, feelings only where we would feel alone and at our end days, with carrying everything in our heart, we would leave alone as well. How we are made up of stars and dust and how we will again convert into stars and dust in this vast blue sky, shining even after we are gone, shining because the shine we have is our own coming from ourselves, racing with time, space and memory. As night deepened and as my diary pages turned one after the other, I realise how beautiful and magnificent this silence truly is, how beautiful it is to be by ownself, thriving in my own world in my own mundane world, as ordinary as it gets, away from societal chaos, societal rules, societal validation, societal parameters. Whenever I feel content like this, I always remember this quote from my favorite book and smile to myself thinking yes maybe this is it. This is what truly life feels like.

The vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy, and that’s okay.

-Mark Manson

I feel like this silence also taught me that I have grown a lot, that I am maturing. I am my biggest cheerleader. My biggest supporter. My own listener. My own therapist. My own healer. This silence taught me I was doing well on my own. I was living my life in my own ways and on my own terms. Looking back, it may be one of the many countless days of my life that I have lived ordinarily. But this night and this evening will be something I will always remember. Because it was something so ordinary yet so mystically beautiful. And maybe this is it. Maybe this is it. As I get lost in thoughts and myself. This is what it feels like to truly live like :)