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The Virtue of Silence

Posted on April 20, 2023     Leave a Comment

‘Not speaking and speaking are both human ways of being in the world’ explains Paul Goodman in his altogether wonderful but sadly out of print work, Speaking and Language.: A Defence of Poetry But, continues Goodman, ‘there are grades of each’. Just as there is speech to hold a family together, a sophist’s speech to […]

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Beyond Small Talk

Posted on March 17, 2022     Leave a Comment

Seen for what it is, small talk is imprisonment of false bonhomie and an utter failure of communication. But, seen for what it could be, small talk is an opportunity to step beyond the banal and into the deepest and most intimate realms of another’s mind. But such an imperative can be overwhelmingly intimidating. As […]

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The Fertility of Silence

Posted on May 11, 2021     Leave a Comment

Silence is more than a phenomenon marked by the absence of sound. Silence is an ideal. It manifests in at least two forms. The first is what we may call ‘imposed silence’. Imposed silence stems from an inability to speak up. It is the disempowered silence of the listener who is denied access to a […]

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Talking to Strangers

Posted on March 12, 2021     Leave a Comment

It may seem counterintuitive, but talking to strangers about our deeper issues offers an opportunity to be candid and honest in ways we are unable with those whom we know well. Unlike friends or families, beyond first impressions, strangers do not have any idea about who we are, how we should act, or the types […]

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