Silence Is Connection: On Not Listening to Music

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So I’ve been on a musical hiatus for about three weeks. Music has been one of my most challenging “addictions” to let go of. (I stopped caffeine, T.V., YouTube, and dating apps with relative ease.)

Music has always been a confidant, a place of refuge and joy…and distraction. Distraction from my pain—sadness, anxiety, overwhelm, fear. Definitely a distraction from my boredom, maybe the feeling I detest most of all.

Instead of playing music while I write, cook, eat, play with my cats, exercise, or drive, I’ve been listening to silence.

I’ve noticed quite a few things about Silence.

One: Silence is extremely painful to withstand if you’ve gone a long time without hearing it. Everything appears: every emotion, feeling, thought, sensation you’ve wanted to bury is free to be heard.

Boredom has been screaming at me the loudest.

I’ve felt like an angsty, petulant teenager—”But I’m BORED!!! We have to make it STOP!”

Boredom tends to hide other emotions, too. Boredom transitions to anxiety and panic and then, sadness. Tears. Whatever wants to be released is released. I’m left feeling empty. Vulnerable. Raw. I sit with those feelings. Eventually, I feel peaceful. Sometimes, a magical, mythical being appears: Creativity!

After an emotional release, I often get the urge to write or draw or note an idea for a new project. I follow the creativity and am delighted by how content and fulfilled I feel when I’m finished.

There’s a quote I heard often as a child: “Only boring people get bored.” Maybe I’ve been so afraid of acknowledging my feelings of boredom because the idea of being a “boring” person has been too much to handle for the little gremlin inside me. You know, the voice that speaks from pain and trauma rather than Truth. Okay, so, I’m allowing myself to be bored and be boring now. As boring as…paint drying, or grass growing, or whatever the trite phrases are.

Ooh but it’s so thrilling what comes through when boredom is allowed to be felt, and accepted. I’m like a creative water spigot, or a fire-breathing dragon who spits out constructive criticism. Or ideas—I don’t know.

Another thing I’ve noticed after choosing silence has been the diminishing of my social anxiety. This has been most apparent at the gym.

Usually, I’ll blast music to avoid the sensation of people watching or judging me as I work out. I’ve always been terrified of looking dumb or unsure of myself while throwing heavy things around or trying to get my legs and arms contorted in just the right way on those imposing gray machines.

I also thought I needed music to “motivate me" through the workouts—some intense beat, a kathunk-kathunk-kathunk (or is it da-dun, da-dun, da-dun?) song where the singer sings about looking hot or asserting their masculinity or femininity at the club, or something.

I don’t need music at all, I’ve discovered.

At first, it was scary. I breathed through the initial moments of fear whenever someone entered the gym. Then it became normal to hear my strangled breathing patterns and occasional grunts as I lifted weights.

I’ve also noticed everyone who enters the gym wears headphones or AirPods. They likely can’t hear me. Maybe they also feel powerless or anxious without the distraction of music.

After a few days, I felt at peace with the silence. Instead of feeling fear and the desire to avoid connecting with my fellow gym-goers, connection seeped in. It’s difficult to describe the sensation of connection, but it’s like an inner knowing of camaraderie. I realized we were all there to improve ourselves. All of us make weird faces and leave sweat marks on the leather seats (and then rush to that beautiful gray bin of cleansing wipes before anyone can see). These strangers were not scary, judgmental aliens. They were simply people, like me.

The philosopher Alan Watts wrote about the feeling of isolation as an illusion in his book, The Wisdom of Insecurity. (This is a complex and life-altering book that I will fail to describe here. However, I highly recommend reading it on your own.)

In the book, Watts mentions that the desire to isolate, or separate yourself, into “I”—your thoughts—and “me”—your body—in order to escape the present moment, is impossible. Even if you are thinking of a memory or a future goal, your body and mind—which are unified, not separate—still exist in the present moment. Therefore, attempting to escape the pain you feel in this moment by using distractions (like music) only causes more anguish. You bury the pain deeper until you become layers and layers of pain. It is a heavy burden to carry.

I have often tried to maintain a feeling of safety by “separating” myself from others, but this was an illusion. I was never so separate from them, in the same way that I have never been a separate “I” and “me,” mind vs. body. When I embrace my present experience, I am also embracing connection.

I’m not saying I’ve given up on music forever, but I will try to listen for the sake of listening, rather than to avoid feeling an emotion. Something tells me it will be a more beautiful experience. Like when you go to a concert, and there is nothing but your body and other bodies and the listening.

*Note: If you’re interested in understanding how to embrace your pain, I also recommend looking into the content of transformational comedian Kyle Cease. I’m a different person after having discovered his work.*