The sound of silence

"Hello darkness, my old friend..."*

Many will recognize this as the opening line of The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel, first released in 1964.

Originally written by Paul Simon in the aftermath of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the song began as an acoustic piece. It gained popularity after producer Tom Wilson added electric instrumentation in 1965—without the duo’s initial involvement.

Despite widespread analysis, Simon himself has stated that the meaning of the lyrics isn't fixed and can be interpreted in multiple ways.

This song, like so many others, seems to haunt the passageways of our minds. Even without fully understanding what inspired its creation, it resonates.

But what is this sound of silence?

• It is the shock—that moment after a single shot is fired, when the sudden crack of the weapon’s discharge leaves everyone stunned. That fraction of a second that precedes mass flight.

• It is that pause directly after a poignant phrase stops everyone in their tracks, thought processes halted mid-sentence.

• It is that nirvana in meditation when all else is excluded.

• It is the endless weightlessness of outer space.

• It is the moment we speak.

Do we speak because of the noise in our heads? Do we only utter word-sounds to clear the eternal, infernal chatter that invades our every waking moment?

Is it that very noise that drives so many sane people crazy?

And all the while, we insert more and more noisemaking paraphernalia into our environment—duplicating, triplicating this constant bombardment.

Perhaps we are afraid of silence. Could it symbolize the end? The calm before the storm? The last thing we will ever hear?

For me, silence is understanding.
Silence is where that slip of the tongue can be avoided.
Silence is when anger is tempered.
Silence is a promise of a more balanced future.

So many of the world’s conflicts could have benefited from silence:

• If Franz Ferdinand's driver had paused in silence before making the wrong turn in Sarajevo, might history have delayed—or diverted—the First World War?

• If leaders at the Treaty of Versailles had listened in silence to the concerns of a defeated Germany, could the Second World War have been softened or avoided?

• If George W. Bush, in the silence after 9/11, had waited before launching war in Iraq based on hasty intelligence, how many lives might have been spared?

• If Rwanda’s political broadcasters had met their own fear with silence instead of hate-filled noise, might a million lives have been saved?

• If social media today offered just a few seconds of silence before each post, how many avoidable fights would dissipate before they even began?

Fogy’s voice is no longer silent—yet there is silence before each and every phrase uttered here among the many pieces that Fogy writes.

And that is perhaps the reflection for today.

Perhaps the sound of silence is all you need to find balance—between peace and conflict, between thought and disaster, between right and wrong.

Shush. Whisper a little to yourself.

Cheers in your silence.

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