The Value of Silence

It's been nearly a month since my last blog entry. Back when I kept my first blog (silentgriot.blogspot.com), I tried to publish a new post every day. Some days I published multiple posts. This time around, I am not so obsessed with daily posts.

It isn't that I haven't thought about anything - this time of the year always seems to be a time of great reflection for me - it's just that I haven't had anything to say. I guess I have come to recognize the value of silence.

It is almost a cliché to say that we live in a time of information overload. It doesn't matter where we are or what we are doing or even what time it is - we are constantly riding an avalanche of data that threatens to carry us away. Not that we mind. We accept that communication is meant to be instantaneous. We embrace the ubiquity of the messages. We believe we have the right, and maybe even the responsibility, to add our voices to the collective din that is our wired world.

The only problem is that there is more to communication than simply sending out a message. Communication is an exchange of messages between different parties. That's how ideas get shared. That's how relationships get built. That's how problems get solved. It's an exchange of messages, and that exchange requires us to talk sometimes and at other times to listen.

I guess for the last month I've been content to listen.