In the beginning was the word. Since then many, many more. The world drowns in words, a reflection of our increasingly cacophonous inner worlds.

Words, words, words. How many spoken, shared, loved, fought over? More words than atoms in the universe maybe?

How many words have you thought, spoken, acted on? 

In the end, what do all those words signify? Nothing of course.

They come, they go, they come, they go. We agitate over words, launch wars over words, bed each other with words and later separate over them. 

We grow excited over a baby’s first words, annoyed at their teen talk. 

We pay attention to words, overlook the quiet, white spaces without which they could not exist.

We start fights with words, then lean on them to make amends. 

We use words as the building blocks of pacts and treaties and contracts, act surprised when these transient materials collapse and fail us.

The alternative, from the sages and seers, is silence. 

But does silence stand much of a chance these days, digitally connected soapboxes in every hand and pocket? A world of self-absorbed egos full of sound and fury, their words signifying nothing. 

Who is left to listen? 

What’s a person to do? 

Let the world make its noise. Turn within, look into the silence that is always there, see what it has to ‘say.’