To date, there’s sufficient number of silent places, like the Mt. Pulog National Park, where I listened to shadows colliding with the terrain as the impressive sun slithers just before the horizon. The Municipality of Sagada in Mountain Province, where I gazed at the native land go up and down right before my very eyes, and listened to the ground breath.
One dilemma, though, my addiction can’t be promptly or simply fulfilled. Like, say for instance, these days, with the word “terrorist” as a piece of our everyday diet as well as collective anxieties chafed sorely by fear and trepidations, I proceed like a turtle and hide my head in the calmness wilderness gives me. There is this desire in me to elude the early morning news that slaps me straight in the face daily. I need to escape in a secluded place, even for the time being, where the atmosphere is harsh with peace and nurses me so I can return intact once more.
For scholars, “quiet” connotes totally no sound. I’m not that radical. I don’t care if there is birdsong brought by the wind, or if there is a calm breeze that plays with wilted plain grasses, or if there is a clacking sound coming from the wings of different insects. I need these sounds. They are my medication. Man-made disturbances and noises are what I can do without, including ringing mobile phones as well as beeping horns and wearying industrial machinery that shades your sanity and cloud your internal senses.
I’ve often asked myself why I act this way. Am I socially odd? A loner? A grumbler?
A hermit?
Well…. yes, since I don’t have any uncertainties vis-à-vis being solo in the wilderness. The idea fits and supplies me the adequate solitude and silence that I need. Others may call it seclusion, but no, for me, it’s a serene jubilation.
I’m not the only one who has a need for solitude, though. You share my passion, although to a conceivably different level. Why else would you be reading a piece of writing that conveys how to literally leave civilization and turn your back on its chaotic noises?
Being a member of the fraternity of silence and solitude carries with it certain understandings. Every single one of us realizes that when silence covers the field, we open a door for a ritual that prepares us to enter the realm of solitude. It may take a moment or two for your senses to become accustomed to the emptiness. Your mind and your ears, above all, aren’t familiar to such conditions of sublime oblivion.
As you slowly ease up and put behind the numbing pressures of society, you drift in to a world so natural, and gradually permit yourself to be shaped through nature’s way. Suddenly, your thought and awareness floats freely as if feather on the wind, imaginative and goes along a direction not destined to be outlined by human logic. Surrender to it and you enter the land of peace and harmony, since nature sees no other way.
Solitude builds an awareness that polishes your mind and causes you to be alert. The hush reawakens primordial instincts that were significant to our ancestors’ survival. During their time, negligence to the slightest sound could impair you.
In the quietness, emotions emerge. Your self-consciousness is heightened, so as your creativeness, compassion, kindliness, sympathy and understanding. Due to the present circumstances, there are no noise disruptions to run away from, the tranquil land turns out to be your mirror, where you encounter yourself face-to-face and discover the truth – concerning yourself and the world around you. You unmistakably perceive the voice of sanity that can safely and truthfully steer you from within. In choosing a path in life, the heart solely knows the way, but it whispers and can be heard only in the quietness of the wilderness.
Some say every individual have the capability to run to a quiet place in us and find peace amidst chaos. According to them, it’s a state of being that is inherent to all of us and isn’t influenced by situations or place. Apparently, they’re pertaining to a form of meditation or reflection as well as thought-control exercises, which don’t have any effect on a Cro-Magnon like me.
As an alternative, I’ve formulated my own method to gain my dose. The original loners and seekers of solitude – our ancestral mountain man of the early centuries – brought with them their treasured and cherished possessions in their rucksack. Well, I’m a bit like them. I bring with me a memorabilia such as a dead root, a twig, a stone, or even a bone of a dead reptile, which I got at some stage in some of my most unforgettable climbs. When instances turn out to be too tough and I have this feeling of having complete silence, which I find only deep in the wilderness, I draw out one of the items I brought, clasp it, and think about the good and happy memories I experienced in the place where I got to hold it for the first time. If I think deep and hard enough, the memories come into sight, so as the views, scents and sounds coming from the past land. And I’m back there again to that same old place, enveloped by the valuable and serene silence I ought to have.
Doubtless to say, I know you have your own manner of getaway, I know this because just like me, you understand that in solitude you will find peace, harmony and beauty. What’s more, you also understand that unsaid thoughts are the most compelling and most fervent. So, enough with this crap! It’s time to liberate ourselves once again in the melodic quietness of our memories.
