Self Awareness

The Sound of Silence

And the sound of water

Jaspar walked in the cool night air to the meeting hall. He took a seat near the back; far from the stage. He had made a commitment to himself to come each week and listen to the speakers but he was not very excited by it. Every story seemed like just a different version of the same old story.

Each week members of the group would take the stage and talk about how they overcame their personal problems and their perceived adversaries to their problems in order to achieve some perceived notion of success.

How boring their lives would be if they did not have some perceived adversaries to their success that they needed to overcome. It was all about overcoming, winning, and achieving. Luckily, they all had monumental obstacles to overcome, intensely powerful adversaries to beat, and ruthless self images to obliterate. They all gathered together each week to pat themselves on the back.

Jaspar knew this was a good thing and that it helped people. But he felt that he did not fit in to this methodology. For him, it was not about overcoming but rather about letting go and moving in new, other directions. It was not about winning but rather surrendering — something frowned upon by the group. To the group it was all about fighting and fighting and fighting to overcome.

He did not want to OVERcome. He wanted to UNDERstand.

At one point in the evening Jaspar could not take one more success story and left the meeting hall. He went for a walk alongside the creek. He noticed that the sound of the gurgling water of the creek seemed so much louder at night than it did during the day.

When the full moon is overhead why does water make more sound than when the sun is overhead? Why did he feel so utterly immersed in the water? Why was he suddenly so thirsty?

Some time after Jaspar left, the speaker addressing the audience in the meeting hall finished his feel-good speech then introduced the next speaker — which was supposed to be Jaspar. But no one came up to the stage. People looked around and some noticed the empty chair where Jaspar had been sitting. There was a long moment of awkward silence.

But Jaspar never experienced that silence. All he could hear was the gurgling of the water in the creek.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. Thanks for reading.

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