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My experience is something like this. I'm an intensely social being, living for some years now as something of an isolate. When I find myself in congenial company I quickly revert, and the transition back to solitude can be painful. It usually takes no more than a day. Driving cross country solo has been a favorite adventure for me since my twenties, despite that first painful day, which gives wy to an intense, often ecstatic, feeling of freedom. I rarely listen to music (same at home, though right into my thirties I don't think I had a waking moment without music), but the internal monologue flows on, often including music that I've pretty thoroughly absorbed. Then come the moments when something surfaces without words, or with words that make no sense to me. I assume that this is what imposed or self-imposed silence is about. The question becomes, still, what 's different between doing this in a group or by oneself. I'd guess, for instance, that in a group there's an awareness to be overcome (or perhaps embraced?) that the silence is a social act, to be acknowledged and renegotiated every time one encounters another what, communicant--the presence of others very much a part of one's internal environment. Is silence in that environment (as in, say, a Cage concert) its own kind of noise? Mark At 11:18 AM 11/26/2005, you wrote: >Interesting question, Mark. I would like to think I do something similar a >lot of the time, but is reading being 'in' silence? Writing, perhaps. But >then, I usually, while not talking to anyone, have music on: so, not silence? > >And I talk to myself. > >Doug >On 25-Nov-05, at 7:02 PM, Mark Weiss wrote: > >>Here's an interesting question, interesting to me, at least. A lot of my >>friends go on retreats to Catholic or Buddhist venues, where they're >>silent among others being silent. I live and work by myself and in fact >>spend many days saying very little. My favorite travel is solitary >>walking and camping. Obviously a lot of people for a lot of millenia have >>referred being silent in a crowd. Any ideas? >> >>Mark >Douglas Barbour >11655 - 72 Avenue NW >Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9 >(780) 436 3320 > >Shakespeare >Drag yr mouldy old bones >Up these stairs & tell me >What you died of, >I think >I've got it >Too. > > Sharon Thesen