Types of Silence

Hello blog-ness my old friend;
I've come to talk to you again...

I think that something very important to me, is dialogue. And I'm using this in very widely distributed terms; IE not just a conversation between two people - but all kinds of conversations between myself and the external world that I perceive - that I interrogate on a regular basis.

Of course this can include a conversation with another person - it often does mean just that! But it also refers to every form of conversation I can try and engage with my external world through, and - more often than not - interacting with the implied structures within that world.

Very often on this blog I have attempted to engage in a dialogue with the world of politics (or - more accurately - I have vented my frustration at the seeming lack of two-way conversations that occur in this arena - or even more accurately; the horrific imbalance of power between those that have been imbued with it by some seeming 'will of the people' and those folk the former allegedly represent).

Like the political example, a number of these examples are one-sided by design, or nature - listening to music is definitely a dialogue - or at the very least an interaction - where an external force enters my perception, and causes some sort of reaction/response - even if that isn't directly fed back to the music - or the creator of that music [although there has been feedback of sorts in terms of live audience response, and other expressions of appreciation].

In similar and more-relevant-to-me-and-this-particular-post terms; I have an implied dialogue with anyone that follows my discord channel; very often I am sharing my thoughts with those that might read them - recently I reviewed the films at the Leeds Queer Film Festival; before then I chronicled my recent birthday solo trip - and sometimes I do get responses from folks. I don't expect those responses really [the particular discord channel is set to be a broadcast only - though other channels are there for others to post their thoughts]; but it is nice when I get them - and it feels at least like someone is reading what I put there occasionally - very much similar to how I feel about this blog. In the main this is me stating some thoughts out in actual words; but equally puts these thoughts out into the wider circle of folk that know me, and occasionally the words will connect and get a response.

Now I am fortunate that I don't crave this sort of interaction on a regular or even irregular basis - but if I got to a point where I was writing things here, and got absolutely no response whatsoever, at all; ever - then I would definitely start to lose my confidence or appetite to engage with this medium; with this ongoing form of dialogue.

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I think what I'm trying to talk about with this blog post in particular are the silences I experience in my day to day life. Many of which are natural and expected; but maybe they are starting to feel different - there starts to feel a shift in how we interpret silences in current conversations.

[And to be very clear; this is not a passive-aggressive dig at anyone who knows me, but we haven't been in touch for some time - that is absolutely not what I'm referring to here; I am not complaining about the fact there can be large chunks of time in which there is a silence between two conversing parties - I just think it is a curious notion that we all have to process on a regular basis].

There are plenty of people that I have at least the 'basic profile details' of - IE I know their names; I know our shared origin story (be that school; university; work; groups; other social connections; etc.); and I know how we like to interact - be that periodically over the internet; annually in person; every day in multiple formats; or some sort of flavour of in-between.

And when there is a silence between those interactions - or perhaps a 'pause' in that particular dialogue - there is an assumption as to what is going on. IE if there is someone that I will engage with a few times  a year; there will be some 'vibe' of an amount of time that I will expect to pass between the most recent interaction, and our next one.
This is quite contrasted with (for example) any silences between me and my partner - IE it would be weird if we don't engage with each other in some form several times over the course of a day, without prior advisement that there may be reasons why the current 'silence' will last a bit longer than anticipated, because of xyz reasons.

And I think for those folks closest to me, I think we have a good understanding [albeit often unwritten] about what sort of gap there would be between bouts of dialogue that we both have with each other - and the circumstances in which that silence might be broken - either in the current tempo of the nature of our conversation with each other - or in exceptional circumstances (either good or bad), that we have premeditated, or at least have an understanding that such exceptional communication is permitted in those emergency scenarios.

But for folk that I am less in dialogue with these days; the silence becomes less clear.

Are we currently not in dialogue with each other because there is simply nothing new to say?

Are we currently not in dialogue because there is less time to afford on such conversations?

Are things silent because of factors I am at least unaware of that has changed the other person's perception of me?

Is this silence not intended, but an accidental consequence of the fact that everyone is leading their own life - priorities change (sometimes drastically so) - and what was once a natural pause in our dialogue together, has - in fact - become a natural end?

Again, these are not silences that I have read into anything right now - I am purely pondering these questions as a part of this blog-writing process - but I think this is something I have gotten more in tune with in recent months. And I wonder exactly which dialogues I want to maintain; and which I no longer carry the energy or headspace to continue.

Which seems familiar; almost inevitable - as a consequence of the fact that an individual life is an individual life - IE not even the person most closest to you in all the ways shares the exact same beats of life with you - obviously you endeavour to share the important moments with each other (which may or may not be achievable) - but ultimately you both (say) work at different places in the day; or perhaps you live in different houses; or there are some moments of each of your lives where you are definitively not actively sharing the experience with the people closest to you - for all manner of acceptable reasons.

So when there are people that you encounter and have some sort of origin story with - it absolutely takes effort to maintain those longer silences between interactions - you can map a cosmos of people in your life, with those closest to you in tight orbits with you and others; and those further out in looser and wider orbits - and even those comets that enter your immediate orbit once in a blue moon, and escape orbit soon after. And those gaps - those silences - can be deafening.

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I'm not all to sure what I am waffling about in this blog - in my previous entry I talked about feeling a little directionless; I think that is no longer the case - I have produced my own structure to the series that makes up my year; this has given me a clearer approach to my weeks and series - and some element to that is maintaining dialogue with those that it feels most important to do so.

Which is not to say to those of you I haven't spoken to recently, that I don't value our conversation - it just doesn't feel as important or relevant right now.

Which does feel harsh to say - I have no doubt this can be interpreted as a rejection of an interaction - but often this might just be that it feels like the silence in-between one interaction and the next simply needs the time to continue; until the time we both feel it right to resume our dialogue once more.

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Silence can sometimes feel uncomfortable. Sometimes this is true when you are in the middle of a conversation with someone you are physically adjacent to - but it can also be true of gaps of time between one remote conversation, and the next desired conversation; and you maybe have no way of bridging the two - or at least you can't see how you get from A to C, whilst navigating B.

And perhaps I worry that B can be unnavigable, so we may never make it as far as C - and I have to sit in silence, and wonder if it is worth the effort.

Will you sit with me a little while?

Photo attribution: Thomas Leuthard