Silence Can Hide A Cry

When there is silence, there are no words, that is, of course, true. But  silence also involves a kind of presence — a message that has not been said but is nonetheless present. Silence, then, is not a gap in communication, but rather a way of communicating something that does not include words.

Silence can tell more than words

Just as there are words that say nothing, there are silences that say tremendously. There are silences that accuse, and there are silences that kill.

Silence arises from, for example, impossibility, fear, or confusion, or it can also express high power. It can be cautious and it can cause trouble. Silence can arise from subjugation, and silence can liberate.

In fact, we could talk about a whole language based on silence. But among all the forms of silence is one that is cruel, for it involves a cry. It is the kind of silence that arises as a result of a crushing experience, and then there are no words to describe how a person feels.

Silence and fear

The silences that hide the cry behind them are almost always associated with fear. However, fear is not the same thing as horror.

As the dictionary says, horror is intense fear, while fear can only be an experience of fear and aversion. Where horror comes from a concrete source, fear in turn arises from an unspecified source.

This difference can be clarified as follows: horror is experienced in relation to an identifiable thing or situation. So it can be a mosquito, a dictator or an imaginary monster.

Fear, on the other hand, is something that is experienced in  the face of a latent threat that arises from a concrete thing, but which is not entirely definable but a mere intuition. Fear is experienced when it comes to “supernatural beings,” “catastrophes,” or “persecution”.

One of the factors that leads to silence in the face of fear is precisely the undefined nature of the threats. How could you talk about extreme fear or aversion if you don’t even know what the emotion is causing or what exactly harm it can cause?

You just feel like it’s “something awful,” but other than that, nothing else is clear.

Horror is what you feel when you are faced with a raging lion in a completely deserted place. Fear, instead, is what you experience when someone you love and very close to you dies suddenly.

In both situations, the feeling manifests as if asleep, but in the case of fear, the added thing is that you are unable to describe and explain your feeling.

Fear includes silence that hides a cry behind it. Words cannot express the greatness of everything you know. The words are too few. Everything you say feels useless, and it won’t make you free from your pain. It doesn’t make others realize how deep your feelings are going.

In situations like this, it feels like words have nothing to do. Verbal communication turns into silence, but also into tears,  gestures of discomfort, and sighs. However, these expressions do not offer you a way to get over your pain, but rather they repeat it.

Cry and poetry

However, words are the only force that can give new meaning to our experiences.  Through words we can form order in our minds in the world as well as pull out of ourselves all those forms of pain that reside in us. Through words, we can bring ourselves up so we can move forward.

Crying as soon as we are born is the first expression in a person’s life. With this first cry, we announce that we are here – we have got through our first big challenge. We are divorced from our mother, and with this first cry we tell us that we need the world to live.

Sometimes when we are adults, we feel that only a huge cry can express what we feel within us. Only a distorted and tearful look could then express that we are defenseless beings in need of the world.

However, we cannot walk around shouting wildly about the difficulties of life. Therefore, that cry that cannot pass through us is replaced by silence. But both the repressed cry and the silence itself signaled our inability to express our feelings in words.

What is the solution? What to do when you need to shout but you can’t? When you want to talk, but words are not enough?  What is left for you to deal with the suffering you experience when mere existence hurts?

When ordinary language is not helpful, poetry serves as an emergency aid. And poetry is not just about carefully constructed sentences, but any type of expression that uses pictorial ways to present things.

Poetry is thus singing, dancing, painting, photography and crafts. Weaving, sewing, decorating and restoring are also poetry. Making creative art in all its forms, carried out with the intention that you could shape the pain you feel, can be understood as poetry.

Carving, carving, cooking… Cooking? Yes!

Whenever words are inadequate, and when you feel overwhelmed by cries, it is the source of poetry  in all its forms. And you go to this place within yourself when the pain and fear have crossed the boundaries of your own control.