This is entry number 10 of my newsletter, A small list of knowable things. As a reminder, if you are reading this entry but haven’t subscribed to the newsletter yet, you can subscribe here. Thank you for reading, as always!
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There was a period of my life where I lived alone.
Because I’m generally quiet in the outside world, whenever I came home to my empty apartment, I was also comfortable with the quiet there, too. It was these years when I lived alone that I learned that I can go long stretches without talking to people, or making sound at all, without really noticing. Sometimes, after realizing that I hadn’t made a sound for hours, or — during episodes when I was depressed and didn’t leave the house for long stretches of time — sometimes days, I’d make a sound just for the sake of making it.
I’d clear my throat loudly to test the waters. Then, I’d shout alright! Or okay! These weren’t responding to anything in particular, aside from maybe the quietness itself.
Sometimes the quiet feels like an overfilled glass of water that hasn’t yet spilled over, the surface tension holding the water inside the glass even when it its filled above where the glass promises to hold it.
When I would shout out into the quietness, it was because I started to feel that surface tension. Once noticed, I could only go so long before I had to break it. Eventually, the water has to spill over.
And it would always startle me — how much my voice would ring through the quiet — and it would startle me just as much to hear my voice disappear into the quiet, as if the quiet was insatiably thirsty and drank up anything I had to offer to it.
But after breaking that tension, the quiet would go back to feeling comfortable. And I would go back to not noticing it. And then I would sit in the quiet for hours, sometimes days, waiting for the water to fill again.
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From quietly provocative international best selling author and TV writer Jonny Sun, A small list of knowable things is a weekly illustration and reflection on a personal object close to his heart. If you haven't already, you can subscribe here.
Glass of water (overfilled but not yet spilled over)
