There is an old adage which says, "Silence is golden." I wondered who actually coined the adage because my experiences point to the fact that silence is much more painful rather than golden. Golden that is, in the sense that it is precious, good for us and desirable to have.
Back in May 1987, I was training at the Overseas Shipbuilding Co-operation Center (OSCC) in Yokohama and for a period of several months, whilst at the center, I actually heard nothing whatsoever about Fiji. Information silence prevailed. The Rabuka coup had just happened when I left, and it was important for me, I thought, that I should be informed about what was happening; because they would impact upon my young family’s welfare, who were living in Suva, without me.
As it were, this lack of information was a form of painful silence to me, and I had to overcome it by spending a lot of money to telephone home daily (unfortunately emails were not in public-use in those days) to catch up on the latest in Suva. Any piece of information thus obtained from home was welcome noise, for they helped me to contain my anxieties and I was able to sleep well at night, whilst many, many miles away in another country.
Ever since, I decided that I do not need silence; I would rather have noises, no matter how infuriating they may be, so that I can keep myself informed one way or another, for surely this is part of what our lives are all about; to be aware of what was happening around us, as it were, to hear the noises and sounds around us.
When, like my grand-dad, I take a noon day nap, I do not expect my grandchildren to hush up, like my grand dad would expect; because when they are not making any noise and there is too much silence, I will immediately awake and look for those precious kids, for I can only rest, if I knew that they were safe and were not in harm’s way, to explain their silence.
So to me silence is really not golden, one way or another. In fact to me, it is noises that are golden because they transmit information. I once knew of an engineer who was able to tell what was wrong with an engine, just by listening to the purring noise or sound it makes. This is what I am talking about; how can we know that something is amiss, if there was nothing but silence? Hence, how can silence be golden?
About a month ago we received a message from some family members that an uncle of mine has been admitted to the CWM hospital and was seriously ill.
I quickly considered the creditability of the information source, therefore I tried to ascertain the noise, by calling my uncle’s landline and his mobile but there was no reply – only silence. Immediately we set about to go and check at his home, before I can be comfortable about contacting our close kin, to inform them of this bad news, but just as we were about to get into action, we all saw the gentleman himself ambling down our driveway in person, noiselessly whistling a tune, much to our surprise. He was himself surprised when we informed him that he was supposed to be sick in the hospital, according to family news we received.
He was in the hospital indeed, he related, but visiting the sick to pray for them; he has never been a patient.
Just imagine; but for the silence of his landline, which was out of order, and his Digicel which needed recharging, we could have resolved our anxieties immediately, for all the while he was at home. Silence was simply not golden.
We are now living in an age where noises are clashing all around us and we all have a dilemma, I suggest, as to the sounds we should hear, because all these noises deliver different information to us. Somewhat like the Fijian lali at boarding school; different beats deliver different information; the time at the top of the hour, the church call on Sundays, or the call to morning duties between six and seven every morning. But whilst the lali serves the purpose of ensuring that the school will function as desired; sounds that we hear in these days and age serve different purposes promoting lifestyle tastes, religious bias, political ideologies; all are meant to sway our thinking and actions towards an agenda which may be hidden. Yet, while noises are desirable, it behooves us to make choices about our situation after deciphering the noises we are hearing. Many of the sounds we hear would deceive us into taking actions that are useless to us on the long run, particularly religious one, I have to say, which are often taken for granted whole without checking, depending on our existing biases. This is true also to a certain extent of political ideologies and lifestyle preferences.
In the last few weeks I have been following the cricket world cup in the Indian continent, and slept very little during the Australia/India quarter final match, only to witness the ousting of the Australian team just before daybreak (Fiji time), which led to the noises heard a week later, to oust the captain, Ricky Ponting. Recently the Australian captain made some interesting points, when he said and I quote;
"The last couple of weeks there's been a few differing opinions out in the papers and out in the news about me and my future as leading the team. It's been nice the last week especially to hear some endorsement from Cricket Australia and the selectors about that position. But that's where the next few days are crucial to me as well. I have to really decide what I think is right for me and the team going forward.”
The noise will be shouted out loud and clear from all sources namely the “papers and news” but what we choose to hear would be selective no doubt, and eventually the decision we make will be ours and ours alone, tempering our decisions to suit the noises we hear. As Ponting said, “I have to really decide what I think is right for me and the team going forward.” How much of the noises he has heard already, will affect that decision, we wonder.
For us also this is true, what is good and right for us, when we have to make a decision which affect our lives have to be based on the noises we hear being uttered roundabout us; of course we will still make our decisions even in the absence of those noises; as it were within silence, that is for sure, but such decisions honestly, may lack guarantees that the decisions we had to make, were good and right for us, going forward.
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