The Big Whinge

The art of saying nothing at all

I love the beginning of the Star Trek: Next Generation credits where you can hear the hum of the stars just before Patrick Stewart's dulcet tones reverberate across the universe.

This singing of the stars is my favourite representation of silence. After the incessant ringing of phones and the necessity to talk all day in order to earn a crust, silence is a welcome and comforting doona at the end of it all.

Silence is a thing of beauty and under-utilised. Like punctuation.

Defy the urge to always fill in the gaps in a conversation.

Have the curiosity to listen to what other people are saying. By listening, I do not mean "active listening" - that hideous 90s management tool to encourage employee communication, which only served to more effectively mask the fact no one was really listening to anyone.

Active listening champions peculiar behaviour such as excessive nodding, the criminal use of superlatives ("definitely" and "certainly" are choice gap fillers) and a plethora of "uh-uhs" to convince the other person you are listening. All this whirl of activity to hide the fact you are engrossed in formulating your own rebuttal without having listened to the argument.

Being silent and listening does not mean other people will believe you are stupid. (Well, actually some might, but they are not the sort of people you should be worrying about or associating with by choice.) It means you have the self-confidence in your own intelligence that you don't have to prove it to yourself and everyone else every 5 minutes.

posted by Yarravillean @ 9:13 pm