There have always been a few words I thought I was incapable of understanding and some concepts I was unwilling to accept. One such example is “Silence”.
This writing of mine is a result of a lot of thinking and
retrospection. Its funny how life has handed me a number of situations where
remaining silent would’ve been the best thing to do; but such a thing did not
exist in my dictionary and hence I always ended up making some noise. I always
had to have the last word.
“Silence is Golden” was absolute bullshit in my
head. People who are extremely close to me will know this, oh yes I fight, if
you are important and I have made place for you in my heart, and you did
something to hurt me, I will fight with you. I will pull your hair out. But
till today, I never thought of keeping quiet as an option. For me, keeping quiet either meant, you
have nothing to say to me, or you just accept you are at fault, which
automatically meant you lost the fight.
My mathematics were, silence =
defeat. Evidently, I was not mathematically sound :P
There have been multiple occasions where my mom has told me,
“Silence is the greatest source of Strength”. It was just like one of other few
things she told me, “Go fold your bed-sheets”; or “Brush your teeth every
night” or “Don’t eat junk”. I listened, no doubt. Never thought about it nor
obeyed. But she was right. Experience is the teacher of all things.
When you get shot with a bullet right in your head, you
die an instant death. You don’t feel the pain as much. It’s just too fast. It happens way too quickly.
But what is more painful is having a shot at a place where
you are left to bleed to death. Every second of every minute you’d probably
feel death is a lot easier.
Silence is that feeling. It kills you. It’s the best and the worst form of
punishment.
When you fight with someone, and the other doesn’t
reciprocate, nothing is worse than that. You want him to retort, you want him
to give it back, you very badly want to provoke him; it kills you to know that
he is keeping quiet after all that you have said. It just shows who's the bigger person, the one who decides to keep everything for after the volcano has cooled off.
As a kid if I did something wrong or misbehaved, my dad would just
stare at me or not talk to me. No noise. I know how that killed me inside. I’d rather
have him scold and yell or even bring the roof top down, than not say a single word.
Silence is one the greatest arts of conversation. Silence is much louder than loud. Silence reverberates. That, my friend, is
the power of silence.
