Blog 5 : Sim

I agree with what Stuart Sim is saying in his work, “The Assault against Silence and Why Silence Matters.” I have never really taken the time to think about silence, perhaps because I don’t have any in my life. There are very few places we can go in today’s world where we come across near silence, much less complete silence. One line that stands out to me is when Sim says, “Thought is an essentially silent activity and is difficult to sustain in a noisy society – and certainly is likely to become superficial when competing with other stimuli.” (pg.39) I can’t remember the last time I sat in complete silence and just thought about different things. The only time my life comes somewhat close to silence is when I’m trying to study in the library, and like Sim argues, the library is becoming increasingly noisy. Towards the end of the chapter, Sim talks about how the desert is the opposite of the busy world most of us are used to. He says, “The desert reduces existence to its basics, encouraging us to reflect on those basics ourselves.” (pg.52) I agree with him that a setting like the desert is one of the few places around today in which we can think by removing all the distractions of an urban area. We don’t think about how much silence could actually benefit us. We too often take silence for granted, and feel like we’re missing out on something when we’re not technologically active. I definitely agree with Sim when he says we need to ‘turn down the volume of our culture.’