A Vow of Silence

You know how now and then you stumble upon an epiphany or a sudden flashback that makes you realise what a sod you’ve been all this while? I get those damn things all the time. It doesn’t help that I like to conduct an involuntary rapid life-review every now and then just in case a near death experience doesn’t occur any time soon. It is then that all these memories start surfacing again, and all the mean things I’ve ever said, or done, or even thought come flooding back to me.

You wouldn’t think that one person could commit so many indiscretions in one lifetime, not even half over. I have done things to people that I have regretted and thought things that were less than gentlemanly on the spur of the moment, thanks to my lightning temper. But most of all, I feel sorry for the things I’ve said.

Dr Don told us something very important one day in Biosemiotics. He was talking about the usual theories and we had just discussed the importance of advertising, metaphor and television in shaping our perceptions, biosemiotically speaking, of course. He said that buying into culture and the stereotypes that we were fed was always a personal choice and a bottom-up process. If we chose not to buy into them, then culture wouldn’t happen. All the advertising in the world can’t start a fad.

Then he applied this to collapsing the wave function of probability. I’d always thought of this as a purely philosophical and scientific concept applicable only to quantum physics, but as always, he applied it to the most basic areas of life. “You can see someone behaving dorkily,” he had said, “And you can give off body signals that say that you think so, without moving at all. In doing so, you’re effectively collapsing all other positions. And that person’s going to feel it, because we’ve become so adept at reading signs. He’s going to go home and feel lousy about himself.”

“So you can choose to be nice,” he continued, “but the tough part about that is that you’re going have to collapse the probabilities every second, because then you have to keep remembering to be nice one second and the next and the next.”

Science aside, that made all the difference in the world to me. And it made perfect sense. The only way for one to change, is not just to make a decision, but to stick to it. And in this world of ubiquitous messages that irrevocably tell you to be a certain way and reject people who aren’t, it’s difficult to remember to be nice, to stay with what matters.

Capitalism, trends, stereotyping, discrimination, preferential treatment, the things we “need” to succeed in life. It’s that easy to fall into the trap of ridiculing someone and saying things that you don’t mean.

So I’m going to try something a little different. I’m going to choose silence. I don’t mean stopping talking, because baby, if you knew me, you’d know that was impossible! But in a choice between silence and repudiation, I’m going to attempt silence.

I say attempt because it’s going to be difficult to remember to make that choice for every second that I am a concious being. I am, however, going to try. I can’t promise that it’ll work, or that it’ll make me a nicer person in any way. But I am game to give anything a shot.

And anyway, when you’ve licked a laptop, nothing’s really off limits anymore.

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In other news, I wore what might just be the only pair of rubber soled high heels in the world today. They squeaked alllll the way through the library. Don’t ask.