‘Silence’: Turn Down the Volume
A review of ‘Silence: In the Age of Noise’, by Erling Kågge; Pantheon Books, 2017.
So Blaise Pascal—mathematician, philosopher, he of ‘wager’ fame—once said that all of man’s problems stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room by himself. Imagine that: no war, no poverty, no chaos—if only man could sit himself down and shut up. And we should remember, reader, that this was in the 1600s, long before TikTok makeup videos or dangerous political podcasts came about. The itch to distract ourselves is nothing new. But what Pascal saw (and what thinkers since have often failed to see) is that stillness is not a nice-to-have. We need it: we need it like flowers need rain. For it is a doorway to parts of ourselves that we very rarely visit.
Which will sound vague, I know. So let me put it differently. When we sit in silence and stillness, the mud that tends to fill our waking minds begins to settle, and the water becomes clear so we can see what lies lurking in its depths. To stop thinking, stop planning, stop dreaming and make space is to allow something new to arise. For only when the mind is quiet, when it is not buzzing with stale thoughts, can we hear the still, small voice of insight. And it is this idea, that a bit of quiet is essential to life, that is the heart of Erling Kågge’s book Silence: In the Age of Noise.
We have to say he is fit to talk about it. This is the man who spent fifty days alone in Antarctica with not a soul in sight and a broken radio. But Kågge isn’t just an explorer. Yes, he has climbed Mount Everest and trekked to the North Pole. (Those feats, combined with the Antarctica sojourn, make him the first person in history to complete the ‘Three Poles Challenge’ on foot.) But he is also a trained lawyer, a philosophy student, a prolific author, and one of Europe’s most respected collectors of contemporary art. He is not exactly what you picture when you think of a spiritual type. Erling is a lean, active, restless sort. Perhaps that is what makes his take on silence so compelling. He is not selling a retreat from the evils of modernity, but a means of finding peace and wisdom within it.
He is not what you picture when you think of a spiritual type. He is a lean, active, restless sort.
But let us be honest: we moderns are drowning in noise – literal, metaphorical and emotional. In my home city (London) there is always a siren wailing away in the distance. Even if they do not live in the city, I suspect most people in the West have to deal with all sorts of sounds, from car alarms to notifications (per Nassim Taleb: ‘Alarm clocks set by someone else.’) And all of this has a way of fooling us into thinking that something of use is taking place when, most of the time, it isn’t. Silence thus feels a bit disconcerting. Which Kågge accepts. He knows silence can be uncomfortable. More than anything, this is because it forces us to sit with ourselves – the raw, restless, aching version whose voice we like to drown out with noise. Silence holds up a mirror.
But here is the twist, dear reader: that prickly, irritating feeling of discomfort that makes us want to smother ourselves in noise is not a problem. It is the beginning of a process. Learning to sit in silence is not about enduring or ‘defeating’ the inner critic and whatever it tells us. It is about learning to accept ourselves. The psychotherapist Carl Rogers noted a paradox when he said that it is only by accepting ourselves as we are that we can change. If we are always filling our heads with noise to shut out our thoughts, then we will never accept our thoughts, let them subside, and allow something new to enter. Nor can wonder, or awe, or gratitude arise. You know I do not wish to be solemn, reader, but this is the good stuff, and it does not respond to commands. These feelings arise unbidden, in moments when our minds are still and our hearts (if I may be so bold) are open. That starts with silence.
Kågge suggests, like Pablo d’Ors, that silence is really about getting outselves into a state of receptivity. We pause, we soften and rather than impose ourselves on the world, as we so love to do, we let the world come to us. In a culture preoccupied with production and performance, this is quietly subversive. And Erling’s prose, like his basic message, has a certain force without being showy. He is not out to impress (or if he is, he at least makes a good job of hiding it) but to invite us to create space. Of course, there is a small irony in using words, and quite a few of them, to write about silence. Kågge knows that. But you have to communicate somehow, and anyway, we can read in silence.
And his prose, like his basic message, has force without being showy. He is not out to impress.
It is of course important to note that when Kågge (or others like d’Ors, or Thich Nhat Hanh) speak of silence, they are not necessarily talking about a total absence of sound. They are speaking of inner silence, interior quiet: that mental emptiness that we (somewhat counter-intuitively) call mindfulness. External quiet simply helps: it is easier for our thoughts to settle in a forest, or on a snowy expanse, or in the early morning. But the silence with which Erling is concerned is a state. And we can, with a bit of practice, learn to take it with us, even into the hustle and bustle of the city.
Joy of joys, we do not have to become monks or nuns. Nor must we move to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Kågge does not even suggest we meditate (but your humble author would recommend it). No: he is less interested in a radical lifestyle upheaval than in making small adjustments to carve out a moment here or there to be present, in silence. Take a walk without headphones or a long bath, or watch the sun rise before checking your phone. Find some outer quiet, and inner quiet can follow.
As I have said, what makes Kågge interesting among champions of silence is that he does not advocate for solitude or any kind of retreat from the world. That is plain to see in his long list of hobbies. His is a more modest proposal, and that, I suppose, is the charm of his book. It is hardly grand. O.K., it is a bit earnest; but still. The gentleness of the thing makes the invitation at its centre, that is, the invitation to stop, look and listen, more enticing. So, reader, next time you find yourself in a quiet room, alone, do not reach for your phone. Do not fill the silence. Sit with it. Let it say what it has to say. And who knows? It might just change everything.
