for the love of silence

Have we lost the skill of being in silence? In The End of Solitude, William Deresiewicz argues that the fear of being alone defines our mode of self:

The great contemporary terror is anonymity. If Lionel Trilling was right, if the property that grounded the self, in Romanticism, was sincerity, and in modernism it was authenticity, then in postmodernism it is visibility.

We strive to be known - not even for a particular virtue, but for the sake of being known (see, for example, Nicole Kidman's icy character in To Die For, directed by Gus Van Sant).

What happens when you're in a place, fully, invisible except to oneself? Over the past months, I've gone to three silent meditation retreats to taste the stillness. It has been easier than expected. Ironically enough, without all the distractions, you are more connected. Not only in the Whitmanesque sense, but in the postmodern spirit: the solidity of ego and self softens. You feel the possibilities of calm connectedness. In psychology speak, you start to know the difference between codependence and interdependence.

After my last retreat, I went straight from bucolic bliss to Grand Central Station. I sipped a cup of soup and soaked in the frenetic New York vibe. I have a newfound love of silence, but it is still the extremes of experience that draw me. A less-than-fine balance, perhaps, but I'll keep seeking.

Next stop, New York?