@questioning_socrates - I’m not sure what you mean by trial by fire.

I think that it is only respectful to wait for your “opponent” to express themselves if they’ve already begun. If you have to get your beliefs or thoughts out “quicker” than the other guy, it shows that you don’t intend to debate; you intend to dominate. It’s alright to disagree with someone, but getting your two cents in before the other guy is not going to make you any more, or less, right for all that you beat him to the punch. Of course you shouldn’t be afraid to tell people what you think, feel, or believe, but conversely, if you can’t respect what other people think, feel, or believe, then you really shouldn’t be debating with them in the first place. A debate without respect is a fight.

@Socrates_Cafe - I did try to address this in my initial post. I do agree that not speaking can put you in an awkward position of agreeing with others by remaining silent- so called tacit approval (another nod to the goddess Tacita). However, my point was if you are always first to get your own two cents in, you may more often than not “put your foot in it” by simply not listening. It’s difficult to listen to others when you are filling the silence with your own words. It is difficult to have a conversation if all you can hear is yourself. Such people are usually refered to as bores.

As for why we have a need to fill silences as nature has a need to fill a vaccuum, some religions say that humanity was created so that the universe could reflect upon itself. So maybe our need to fill the silence is how the universe holds its discourse upon itself.

@Zeal4living - They do say that people hear what they want to hear. This can be due to ego… people hearing only what pleases them or comforts them in some way, or it may be due to training – we hear what is practical or what we are most familiar with. In silence, as with sound, we hear what we are inclined to perceive for whatever reason. So while someone might hear in silence the sound of a motor, another might pck up on the cawing of a bird, and other might only hear a silence that is absent of the things which they are used to hearing and seek to fill it up with their own personal kind of noise.

@sugarxane - I agree… and disgree. Silence is definitely a good way to stop yourself from just blurting things out, especially when someone asks you a question. When someone asks your opinion, it is especially important that you reflect upon the question before speaking. If someone respects you enough to want your opinion, it is only respectful in turn to give them your best answer. As for using silence to express anger, sometimes that’s best as well as it stops you from saying things you might regret and gives you time to think your anger through, either to express your grievances later or to dismiss them entirely.

@Zeal4living - Keep in mind I did this when I was a kid, mainly to see if anyone would notice. They didn’t. It actually made me feel a lot worse about myself because I had done it in the hopes that someone would ask me why I wasn’t talking and then I could tell them how I was feeling and be relieved that someone cared. I have this problem where I can’t just dump what I’m feeling on people unless they offer to take it on in some way. Now I just blog about it and people who want to read, can, and I am free of any guilt at sharing my feelings. I’m messed up; I know.

So I didn’t really do it for the right reasons. I didn’t do it so I could hear more; I did it because no one was hearing me when I talked and I hoped that my silence would make them appreciate me more. That’s not to say I didn’t learn anything productive from my week of silence, just that it was not something I learned right away. Mostly I wallowed in self-pity for a couple more years.

Frankly, there was nothing difficult about my week of silence because no one asked me to speak. That’s not to say I didn’t want to speak. Before that, I had often been the only person to volunteer to answer a question in class. I liked answering questions. It was something I was good at. Even after the week was up, I didn’t volunteer so much any more, mostly out of depression. I even asked a teacher later why she wouldn’t call on me if I was the only person with my hand up and she said, “Well I already know you know the answer.” It’s still not logic I understand beyond getting the other students to participate. If you ask me, if I was the only person in the class participating, maybe I should have been taken out of that class and put in a more advanced one.

Would I recommend people going on a week of silence? Yes… not for the reason I did of course, but if they went into the experience just to observe the world around them without making an impact, that could be educational, humbling even. I imagine it would be much harder for an adult to take a week of silence than a child. Children are better seen than heard, or so the old saying goes. Adults have to work and interact with other adults to achieve their goals… food, shelter, and the acquisition of other goods. So it might be easier if the adult could leave society for the week of silence, but that kind of defeats the purpose to my way of thinking. You want to be silent in the midst of humanity in order to observe it without altering it by inputing your own ideas. If a week of silence were to be achieved in the midst of society, a person would have to explain themselves in some way, either before hand or with a note… even so, it would take a very understanding employer to accept an employee’s week of silence at work. But since work is an environment that you spend most of your time in, taking off from work for the week of silence would be somewhat counter-productive. You would want to frequent the same environments you always do during your week so that you can learn in silence what you haven’t learned by opening your mouth. Unfortunately, by explaining yourself, you change how people would react to you and in your presence already…. A week of silence for an adult would probably be almost impossible in our society.

@Zeal4living - Mostly I wouldn’t approach it with the expectation of people trying to find out what was wrong, mainly because this time around, nothing would be wrong. My goals would be different, mostly the goal would simply be to experience and perceive (listen instead of speak), so there’s no way I could be disappointed after the week was over. My disappointment with the initial week of silence delayed my appreciation of what silence means. Afterwards I became more withdrawn because I felt rejected by society and so I didn’t appreciate the fact that silence allowed me to observe people without being drawn into the turmoil of their lives. If asked to mediate or intervene, I could give an honest opinion based on observation, not on my own desires, because I was not a part of the problem, I was merely an observer.