five hours to go

I'm on the RUF leadership team and we are reading a book called Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. Some of the disciplines we've read about include, fasting, prayer, meditation, study, etc. This week we are reading about simplicity and solitude/silence. Along with reading chapters of the book we are assigned projects. This time we are to go 24 hours without speaking, as an experiment.

I'm doing this now. I started at 7:16 pm last night, so I have less than five hours left. And it's been interesting. Some thoughts:

- from the book: "It is easier to be silent altogether than to speak with moderation." - Thomas a Kempis

- being silent makes me do other things more loudly - popping gum bubbles, washing dishes, etc. I feel the need to make some sort of noise.

- this feels really artificial. Last night Amanda and I were both at home. And it's not like we would be talking the whole time, but there is the normal periodic back-and-forth that is natural from being around another person. This was almost completely eliminated. And it felt so fake. I'm just choosing not to talk, for no real reason, and it really stunts our interactions.

- I retreated to non-verbal forms of communication. I sent a whole lot of emails and facebook messages in just a few hours last night. It was like I could still be my real self, though online, since I can't be myself in person

- Julie and Carolyn and I went out for lunch and they had to order for me. I felt a little stupid.

- This makes me realize how much of what I say is useless. And how much of it I say only as a societal necessity - responding to what people say just so they don't think I'm ignoring them, etc. I could cut down my words by a lot and not lose anything.

You should try it some time. Other experiments I want to do are speaking only in Russian, and choosing some words to completely eliminate from my speech for a day in order to make my speech more efficient.