Silence and Us

“Hush! Don’t speak! Don’t react, maintain peace, stay silent.

It’s better to be quiet. It won’t cost you anything to keep quiet. If only you kept quiet, things wouldn’t flare up. Expressing your anger isn’t the best way to resolve issues, you know. If you are silent, the other person gets to calm down after they have expressed their anger.” This is what we hear time and again. Fair enough, provided we get to present your side too.

Then again,

“Your mother will not talk to you until you admit you were wrong! Go and apologize. Tell her you’ll do as she wants. After all she is doing this for you.”

“Why can’t you speak calmly or just keep your mouth shut! Don’t speak up, your father will get angry, what will I do if he leaves the house in anger! Go and say sorry to your father, only then will he talk to you—it doesn’t really matter whether you were right, he is the elder, head of the family, who looks after all of us, so go and say sorry now. He will be happy and this heavy silent treatment will disappear.”

The same happens with couples, one of them gives a silent treatment to the other for not complying to their way of life. All we hear is "stay silent, don’t say anything—that way peace is maintained wherever you are, however you are. That’s the only way to save your relationship!" they say.

Hush! Hush! And more Hush! It’s all that you get to hear, building a storm of resentment and reactions which lay dormant until it gets a way to boil out—either like a volcano or like the high tides of the sea on a full moon night.

Any relationship where this ship is sailing on silence to maintain calm waters; it’s bound to sink sooner or later. The water can’t be kept calm and silent for long—our emotions are such too. However, one cannot rule out the significance of silence in our lives. Silence can bring in real peace if it’s not maintained as a barter to our feelings and emotions. Silence can foster and nurture creativity, it can heal and help an individual grow....