N
noname223
Archangel
- Aug 18, 2020
- 5,001
This is a part of the David Foster Wallace video which I watched like 50 times and endangered my sanity. I really love that interview. In this cutout he talks about silence and not being (over) stimulated. In our nowadays internet culture everything happens so fast. There is no more room for silence in today's world. In public places there is often music. Everything is about gratifying your appetites/desires. Literature often requires to sit in an empty room all alone for yourself with a lot of silence. For some this is a real dread. And I can relate to that very well. (He obviously had another relation to literature and art. He was an author.)
I sometimes struggle to read literature exactly for this reason. My brain needs intensive stimulation so that I don't start ruminating. At the same time it is also true there is also a need for silence inside myself. Something craves for it. For me this quiet part is often when I write in this forum. Then I am often introspective and self-reflective. I evaluate my day and my feelings. But I even have started to listen to music when I am in this forum to stimulate me. It should distract me from my loneliness. And partly from my isolation of real world connections. I communicate a lot with the help of the internet.
But this silence is for me rather an inner state. Like taking a pause to think. I think my soul really depends on that in order to stay stable. I have noticed in the past I neglected this need/desire. It has made me ill, increased my suicidality and was the beginning of my psychotic episodes.
At the same time a very long period of silence can be torturing for me. Especially when I am surrounded by an environment which I dislike and where I am not feeling comfortable.
Do you know that dealing with silence can sometimes be dreadful or exhaustive? Sometimes it is frightening for me being confronted with all my inner demons without the ability to cope by distracting myself with stimulation.
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