Despite this Mass being noisier, it’s more quiet. After I had been attending the Latin mass for a period of time I had made this off handed remark to one of the parishioners without much thought. Many of the parishioners have large families with small children so crying and fussing is no stranger to the otherwise solemn service. Despite the quantity of decibels in the church the quality of the service was one of quiet. On the other hand, while travelling amongst one of the many gutted towns of the American Midwest and attending an ordinary form Mass attended by mostly boomer felaheen I noticed a lack of qualitative silence despite the much lower volume.

I preface my discussion of silence with this story to illustrate that the silence I’m speaking of is not quite the common understanding of silence. I pair it with the system of idle hands as it is more of an internal focus to the outward focus of work of the psyche which is a structure repeated throughout the heptad.

We live in a noisy world. Voices clamor for your attention, digital hawkers shove their products under your nose in increasingly surreptitious ways, and music is always in the background and available at a touch. Not too long ago music was only available performed live and one needed some level of proximity to the snake oil salesman to hear his pitch. Now, each of the tendrils of modern media have a megaphone firmly in their slimy grasp assaulting your senses demanding your ever-decreasing awareness and wallet.

It’s difficult to grasp the true ramifications of this new world. There are studies of decreasing attention spans and distractibility and increasingly polarizing views and an inability to tell truth from illusion. When confronted with unprecedented things it’s best to return to old fences and realize their guidance and purpose. Silence was a critical component to the monastic tradition and further back to the mystery schools of antiquity. In practical purposes this meant abstaining from frivolous talk and keeping the affairs of the order private. But as I mentioned silence goes far deeper than decibels.

People search for purpose and answers and messages from the Divine. It’s not usually brought up that perhaps the guidance is there but it’s simply too noisy internally to be heard. The inner is a reflection of the outer and if your conscious mind is distracted by pixels, words, and shiny objects,  your soul perturbed by regrets, anger, and feedback loops and your body soft and agitated unable to be at peace how can you ever have the ears to ear. If an angel came to you with a mission to accomplish on earth would you even recognize it or even begin to muster the will to carry out its request?

Silence applies to the whole being. Evaluation and assessment must be made on each aspect of your person. In our age of mass media the intellectual is the most apparent with the constant deluge on information accosting us with social media. There is a book written on Digital Minimalism, by Cal Newport that despite the trendy title I’ve seen good feedback from decent individuals.  It doesn’t take much to get “clean” when being honest. What is truly useful about smartphones: GPS, email, SMS. Get an unlocked burner and a GPS/paper maps and your free. What role social media will play in future efforts is up in the air and the irony of writing this on the internet is not lost on me. I also have to admit that some living individuals have elevated social media to a genuine form of modern art, in a good way. Whether there are any truly redeeming qualities to the web or if it’s just a Palantir bringing ruin has many points on either side. At a minimum, limit the amount of time on the internet and definitely eliminate using it mindlessly without genuine purpose.

The emotions are much more subtle and personal despite media appealing to them for ease of access. Habit, predispositions, character, and trauma create cycles of passions that create a fog that keeps us from purifying ourselves. To overcome requires a degree of detachment and an examination of one’s history and seeing what moods and reactions are triggered in us in varying situations. Noticing patterns of behavior from a detached POV allows you to follow the thread of where certain accumulations arise. When the fog of impulse is cleared the emotional life is then able to act as a sensor that can guide our decisions and capabilities in assessing the worlds around and inside us. Our physical bodies require stillness just as much as our other faculties. Good posture, purpose filled movement, and a lack of fidgeting instill and communicate a sense of discipline and capability. Any successful predator instinctively knows that physical stillness is critical in the hunt. This must be practiced constantly as your body is the vehicle to any action to be taken. Stand as much as possible and exercise will do much to correct poor posture. Otherwise assess your posture and take needed actions to correct excess lordosis, pronated shoulders etc. The Art of Manliness website has some good articles on correcting posture. Avoid fidgeting when seated and be purposeful in movement. However, in journeys across the wastelands of the kali yuga it’s best to remain moving, once again silence is to be taken in a poetic sense.

“It’s the quiet ones you have to worry about.” They were right when they said that. To refrain completely from the squawking and screeching that goes on in analog and digital realms strikes fear in many. Perhaps, it’s a reminder of the silence of the grave. Embracing this silence will set you apart and above the cacophony that seeks to drag you into the abyss.