#49 The Day of Silence

A Reflection on Why We Fear Silence so Much

There is a place in the world where, once a year, everything stops. No flights arrive or depart. No cars on the roads, no lights at night.

An entire island goes quiet.

This week, Bali celebrated Nyepi, the Balinese New Year. But instead of fireworks, countdowns, and loud celebrations, Nyepi is marked by 24 hours of complete stillness. No travel. No work. No entertainment.

You stay where you are. You turn off the lights. You reduce your activity to the absolute minimum, and most importantly, everyone is asked to turn inward. It is a collective pause.

It sounds magnificent.

And yet, as I sat on our terrace in the early morning light, feeling the sun on my face, trying to embrace the silence, I noticed: Stillness is much harder than we like to believe.

Learning to be Alone

In the days leading up to Nyepi, I was thinking about this more than usual.

I had been listening to a conversation with Michael Pollan, where he describes a transformative Zen retreat designed to dissolve the sense of self. The retreat involved spending days of silent meditation in a cave. Completely alone.

Pollan says:

"Our sense of self depends on other people. [...] It is in the friction between people that we define ourselves and figure out what we think. And when you are alone - extreme solitude - the edges of yourself soften."

That thought stayed with me. Because I know it is true.

Who are we, really, without the constant reflection of others? Without conversation, feedback, comparison?

On Nyepi, the island offers a collective invitation to step into your own cave.

To remove yourself from the world. From other people.

And, in a way, from the structure that usually holds your sense of self together.

The Discomfort of Silence

Around the same time, I was reading Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom.

The book tells the story of Morrie Schwartz, a dying sociology professor.

There is a moment where Morrie walks into a classroom, sits down, and says nothing, ready for something different.

In the book it goes:

"He (Morrie) enters the classroom, sits down, doesn't say anything. He looks at us, we look at him. [...] ,there are a few giggles, but Morrie only shrugs, and eventually a deep silence falls [...].

Some of us are agitated. When is he going to say something? [...] This goes on a good fifteen minutes, before Morrie finally breaks in with a whisper. "What´s happening here?" he asks.

And slowly a discussion begins about the effect of silence on human relations. Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?"

What comfort do we find in all the noise?

On Nyepi, this question becomes almost impossible to ignore.

Would You Escape?

While Bali goes quiet, nearby islands advertise “Escape Nyepi and party with us on Lombok".

Even within Bali, hotels offer carefully curated experiences, special packages filled with food and soft entertainment.

Anything to keep you occupied. Anything to make sure you are not bored. Anything to avoid the silence.

Why is it so difficult to simply stand still for 24 hours?

Why does it feel so strange when all distractions fall away?

Our First Nyepi

I still remember my first Nyepi, when back then, things were even more strict.

Back then, there was no internet, no mobile signal, and no television.

For 24 hours, the entire island was offline.

I remember how often I picked up my phone, fully aware that it wouldn’t work, noticing that automatic movement and that reflex to reach for something, which made me realise how deeply conditioned we are.

Today, the internet is back on during Nyepi.

Maybe it’s practical, or we just couldn’t tolerate the silence anymore.

What Lies Beneath the Noise?

Going back to Morrie’s question: What comfort do we find in all the noise?

Here is a possible answer:

Without noise, without distraction, and without constant input, there is nothing left to buffer us from our own thoughts, no conversation to redirect them, and no scrolling to avoid them. Just silence.

And in that silence, things begin to shift.

For me: Questions surface. Many of them.

Too Many Questions

Silence does not give answers; it gives questions, and often too many of them, which may be exactly where the discomfort begins.

Because questions create uncertainty, and uncertainty unsettles us.

We long for clarity, for direction, for reassurance, and for something that feels steady and known.

So when silence opens a space filled with unknowns, we instinctively reach for something to close it again.

Noise becomes the solution.

And in many ways, it is a very effective one.

In the noise, we come together, we talk, we complain, we celebrate, and we follow the same conversations and the same rhythms, which creates a sense of familiarity and belonging.

There is comfort in that.

It feels easier to be uncomfortable together than to sit alone with questions that have no immediate answers.

An Uncomfortable Answer

And maybe that is the real reason.

We don’t fear silence because of its emptiness, but because it is full of questions.

In silence, there is nowhere to hide, no role to play, and no noise to define us.

And perhaps that is why silence, when we truly allow it, can become unbearably deafening.