On one occasion, the avant-garde musician John Cage decided to visit the anechoic chamber at Harvard University in search of absolute silence. An anechoic chamber is a room constructed in such a way that it prevents any sound from entering, leaving and propagating through the space.
However, when he was inside, Cage realized that he was accompanied by two sounds: one high and one low. When he left, he mentioned it to the camera operator. His response was that the high-pitched sound corresponds to the functioning of his own nervous system; while the bass sound was the flow of his blood, the musician’s own circulatory system.
After this experience, in 1951, Cage would proclaim that “silence does not exist”, because in one way or another, our ability to listen cannot even escape from the body’s own functioning. Therefore, after that experience, in 1952 Cage conceived his most famous work: 4’33”, 4 minutes and 33 seconds in which a musician remains silent in the room, while the spectators (often stunned, bored or confused) They listen to the noise of the room and the clamor of their own interior.
Thus, silence cannot be defined simply as the absence of noise, because we carry “noise” with us wherever we go, from the moment of birth to death, from a physical as well as a spiritual point of view.
How, then, to find the therapeutic and creative benefits of silence, which so many people have celebrated?
Various studies have stated that silence allows neuronal connections to be regenerated, develops creativity, reduces stress and tension and renews cognitive processes. It is possible that when we talk about “silence” we are not necessarily referring to an acoustic phenomenon as much as to a sensory state of emptiness, which may seem like a paradox at first glance (or simple listening). Some forms of meditation even emphasize the importance of seeking silence within ourselves, putting a stop to the “noise” that we carry inside us, made up of negative emotions, as well as the expectations and pressures of life.
Today there is an entire “silence industry”, dedicated to the promotion of sensory isolation chambers, isolating headphones and expensive trips to the most remote areas of cities, where those who can afford it have a distant glimpse of a silent world.
Given that, according to the World Health Organization, around 340 million people suffer from conditions associated with excess noise in urban areas, it seems a matter of first necessity to guarantee at least one season of silence every so often. But how much silence do we need to regain health and learn to “listen” to the flow of life from a healthier perspective?
Silence tours
Robert Twigger is a British poet, writer and explorer, whose marriage to an Egyptian woman took him to the desert on numerous occasions, and he found something there capable of becoming a curious business adventure. Together with his friend Richard Mohun, they began offering excursions to the desert with no other purpose than to allow explorers to witness the silence of the burning dunes.
However, the price of the excursion is not cheap: $2,400 dollars for 14 days on a camel, living the Bedouin way, with nights and days in extreme temperatures, all to get a glimpse of that precious, intangible asset, that in the cities has almost completely disappeared, diluted in the incessant murmur of people and motor vehicles.
Unlike Buddhist silent retreats (Vipassana), Twigger’s excursions into the desert are governed solely by the discipline of the latter. The route to be covered is similar to the size of England, more than 114,000 square kilometers, and sometimes the expeditions last almost 1 month.
But to answer the question we posed above (“how much silence does a person need?”), Twigger has a poetic answer:
You can become greedy, addicted… Continuous noise produces chronic stress. Stress hormones become a constant company, circulating day and night, destroying your heart. That must be why the first few days in the desert seem so wonderfully rejuvenating. I have seen an old man – a heart surgeon, coincidentally – go from shivering around camp to striding between the edge of the dunes and rocky cliffs. That is the power of silence.
Regardless of whether you seek your “dose” of silence in a garden, in your insulating headphones, in the desert or in the frozen confines of Finland (another useful destination for silence tourists), experiencing the immensity of silence inevitably leads to experiencing the immensity of your own soul, mind, spirit or whatever you decide to call it.
Perhaps to experience something resembling spiritual silence we need to empty ourselves, rather than distance ourselves from civilization. Rediscover that attention to the immensity that constitutes us, and that, like the “internal” noise, we also carry with us wherever we go.