Silence

Most of my life is lived in silence, apart from listening to radio 4 news at meal times & watching TV in the evening. I mostly only watch programmes that I have recorded, I can't bear the intrusiveness of adverts for things I don't want or need. I can't concentrate on two things at once now, so listen to far less music than I used to, which I feel is sad. I certainly need silence to read, research or write, which I do a lot.

I actually like the calm of silence. I have started to meditate again & find it very restorative & relaxing. The pattern & routine of my retired & single life suits me fine after the stress & manic activity of my working life. I have time to think & there is plenty going on in the world to think about now. 

All in all I value silence & can find noise quite intrusive. I'm not antisocial, I do value good conversation & the exchange of ideas. 

There is a downside to silence though. Silence in the face of wrongdoing is itself wrong. If we see bad behaviour - aggression or intimidation & do nothing, we diminish ourselves. If we refuse to give evidence against something wrong we have witnessed, we are not being good citizens. If we promulgate fake news & lies & don't call it out, we are knowingly distorting truth. If we fail to support people who have been discriminated against in any way, we are complicit. There are innumerable ways that silence is not acceptable. Silence just makes wrongdoing acceptable & victorious.

Putting your head above the parapet for a belief in truth & justice isn't easy. It can open you up to the very behaviour that I abhor. Yesterday I watched a peaceful Extinction Rebellion protest in Oxford. A very mixed group of demonstrators of all ages. 

https://extinctionrebellion.uk/the-truth/

 

It's a group who feel that the truth of the Climate Emergency is so dire & important that civil disobedience & disruption is justified. The disruption they cause to peoples daily lives makes them very unpopular in some quarters. People don't like being brought face to face with the possibilities of climate change & they really don't like being inconvenienced. If you believe that the world & everything in it is seriously threatened by what man has done over decades & you don't believe that politicians & big business are doing enough to avert catastrophe, should you be silent?

It is arguable that climate protestors are very brave because they suffer inconvenience & risk themselves by their actions. Some of the activists do actually risk physical harm or worse. How many of us are willing to stand up to wrongdoing? How many of us simply hide behind silence? 

Silence isn't an option.