The Complexity Of Silence

Silence sounds simple until you try to live with it. We start with a funny truth: most of us don’t fear noise, we fear what happens when the noise stops. From an umpire’s “silent” ball call to the way we cram weekends with plans, we unpack why unstructured time can feel uncomfortable, even when we say we want rest. And we don’t treat silence as a single definition. Sometimes it’s no sound at all. Sometimes it’s reading, thinking, walking the dog at dawn, or letting your mind settle without outside drama. 

We also dig into the modern engines of distraction: screen time, doomscrolling, and the constant stimulation that trains our brains to expect inputs 24/7. When your nervous system is programmed for alerts, quiet can feel painful or even scary. We talk about the “should” noise that follows us around, the self-expectations that create guilt, and the difference between being present in an activity versus using activity to avoid yourself. If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t stop checking your phone, or why doing nothing feels like wasting time, you’ll recognize yourself here. 

To make it real, we share practical, low-pressure experiments for reclaiming quiet: start with 10 minutes, protect the first few minutes of your morning before you touch your phone, challenge your own expectations the way you’d advise a friend, and try the oddly revealing test of leaving your phone outside the bathroom five times. Subscribe, share this with a friend who never stops moving, and leave a review. What’s one small way you’ll make space for silence this week?

Transcript

Welcome To The Complexity Of Silence

SPEAKER_06 0:01

And I wish we could go back to a time when things weren't so complicated.

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Welcome to the complexity of toilet paper, the podcast that dives into the everyday moments where we overthink, hesitate, or just get stomating. Through honest conversations, unexpected insights, and a whole lot of humor, your hosts Phyllis Martin, Mark Pollock, and Al Emmerich are here to help you roll with it and make your life a little less complicated. One conversation at a time. Right, dude. The beauty of this is its simplicity. Speaking of which, it's time to enter the stall. Put the lid down, or not, depending. Get comfortable and roll with it. Oh worry not, dear friend. It's really quite simple. This is the complexity of toilet paper. Hello.

SPEAKER_04 1:12

Yes, that was awkward, probably. Because you were wondering, is there silence? Is there something going on? It was awkward for me to keep my mouth shut. You see, silence is not typically something, or the absence of sound or noise is typically related to the idea that you can't hear something. But here at the complexity of toilet paper, we don't deal in just one of the senses. We deal in the multi-sensory aspect of complexity. And that means well, I really don't know what it means, but I do know that Phyllis had a brilliant idea for her show, and that's what we're doing. We are here to explore something so wonderful that you may just say, shut up. And we would. You see what I did? You see what I did with the pun there? Shut up. Hi everybody, this is the complexity of toilet paper, the addition that we are calling the complexity of silence.

SPEAKER_05 2:38

My name is Al Emmerich.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

I'm Mark Pollock.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

And the two of you are taking it a bit too far. Hi, I'm Phyllis Martin.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

I just wanted to play for a minute.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

I know you did. You'll have your chance.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Alright, cool.

Baseball Umpiring And Silent Signals

SPEAKER_04 2:54

Um I I will just tell you that there couldn't be a better week or day for us to be recording this particular show. Um because just this past weekend, I umpired again. Um I've referenced this before that I will occasionally umpire all-star, little league baseball, travel baseball games. And um God, there was a lot of noise. Um and it's funny because literally, um I, when I was calling balls and strikes, right? You typically when it's a ball, you don't say anything. Um when it's a strike, you you you call it. And when fans got on to me, they were like, Well, how come you're not saying anything when it's a ball? You're just silent. And immediately I was like, Yeah, because there's nothing to do. If it's not a strike, then I'm not, you know, that it's not a strike. It's it's it's a ball. It's just kind of assumed. He's like, Well, you can't make that assumption. He's like, silence is not always the golden rule. And I'm literally having this conversation with a fan, and I'm going, Oh my god, we're gonna be opening up a show uh called The Complexity of Silence. Okay, God, you are definitely dropping some nuances of your of your life on me here. So um, I know that's not the only silence you were talking about, Phil. Um, but uh it's just the irony of of the weekend and and and here we are arriving with somebody who never shuts up. Um Mark, did you ever notice that?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

No, no, that that wasn't anything that I ever paid attention to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Um so why are we here to talk about silence? So and I'm gonna steal Phyllis's question, then I'm gonna let her roll because this is it's her brilliance that brought us to where we are right now. Um and I think the way we got here is pretty awesome because this whole concept of silence all of a sudden took on different meaning. But

Why Free Time Feels Unusable

SPEAKER_04 5:00

when was the last time, our fellow pod uh casting family here who sits in the stall with us, when was the last time you had a totally unscheduled day and didn't rush to fill it? Think about that. Like, think about a day, a weekend, a weekday, it doesn't matter. Hell, think about a couple of hours that you just had carte blanche to go, yeah, I can do whatever. And what did you do with it? You probably filled it. Or did you? I don't know. I know that I think I'm not filling it, and I do. I fill it with thoughts, I fill it with whatever. And so that kind of got thrown around the stall, and here we are having a conversation about it with you all, our stallmates, and uh the complexity of toilet paper. Did that tee it up?

SPEAKER_00 5:58

I might add a little bit. Um I'm gonna add a little bit to that because it it's in part how we got started. But you actually had an idea about something like the complexity of hobbies or the complexity of how you spend time outside of work or the complexity of play. I can't remember which one. I think it was really around hobbies and how you select hobbies. And to me, that kind of morphed into a conversation about um scheduling time, right? When you finally have time, then how do you select what you're gonna do? And somehow in that banter back and forth of the conversation, um, I felt like it really wasn't a, it really isn't the complexity of hobbies or the complexity of activities. It's the complexity of silence. Because I think for many people, I'm not gonna say most, but for many, the notion of literally doing nothing or what you perceive to be nothing, which means you're not out running around, you're not cleaning the house. In my case, you're not dusting the baseboards, you're not planning for an event, you're not going out to dinner, you're just hanging out with yourself or with a friend, with your partner, with your significant other. But there's no demand, there's nothing that says you have to do something. You actually just have to be. And I think that's a really hard thing for people to do in the world of scrolling and in the world of social media. And I think sometimes in a world that says, well, if you're not doing something, if you're not at this event, if you're not going to hear this, if you're not going to go watch this, then you're wasting your time or you're less than. So for me, it became the complexity of silence.

SPEAKER_05 7:53

And that's the show, folks.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yeah, we're gonna have dead air for the next 45 minutes, so you can do whatever.

SPEAKER_04 8:01

You know what's so interesting about what you said, Phil?

Generations And The Pressure To Perform

SPEAKER_04 8:05

Um, is that well, there's many things. Specifically, I think it's also a generational slide, if you will, to that comment about if you're not doing something, then you're wasting time. It it's like if you're older, uh, as in the later years of your life, retirement, approaching retirement, it's kind of like, oh, that's great. You're supposed to do nothing.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Could not disagree with you more, even if I stopped you right there, but keep going.

SPEAKER_04 8:39

Okay. Um, I can't wait to hear that.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Well, you're making an assumption that retired people are gonna do nothing.

SPEAKER_04 8:46

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's no, you're misinterpreting what I said. What I what I'm what I'm or or at least what I meant. What I meant was that oftentimes I'm 58 years old. I have friends of mine that are in their 70s that are very active or very, very busy. But oftentimes we'll say, Oh, yeah, listen, I don't have anything on the plate today. And someone will say, Oh, that's great. Doing nothing is amazing. Just hanging out is is awesome, right? But yet, if you're in your 30s and you say that, I think you you're admonished, right? It's like, well, why would you not do anything? Um, I'm not saying it's an absolute, I'm just saying that you get a little bit more of a break because it's kind of I think uh what's the word I'm looking for? Um whatever. It's like expected that when you're older, um, doing nothing is more okay than if you're younger. And I think that's I think that's whack, right? You know, it's silence is silence, whether you're 20, 30, or 90. Um, and that's one of the things that you kind of made me aware of is how little silence there was, even though I think there's a lot in my own life because I meditate and I sit in silence. But there's so many other times where I could take advantage of that and I don't.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

And I'm not even saying oh, go ahead, Mark.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

No, finish your thought and then I'll go.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Okay. I'm not even saying like you have to just sit like quietly, like in a meditative state. I'm saying it's the absence of external influencers. So it could be that sitting in silence, sure, maybe I'm gonna mop the floor, but I'm not gonna do it with music on, or I'm not gonna do it with external things going on around me. But mostly I think it's really about, and this comes to mind for me all the time. And I understand I am when I grew up in a different generation, I didn't have we didn't have the kind of external inputs that we have now. But as an, and I don't think this was bad. And I gave these examples to you guys when we were talking. We used to literally, for fun, lay on our backs outside and look at clouds and make up stories in our minds about what was happening or think about things. Or we would listen to music on the radio. But if you missed a song, you missed a song. And the fun was having to wait for the song to come back around again. Because there was it was radio. Like you had to wait for the song to come back, to come back on again. You couldn't automatically download music and and make something up. Even on a tape, you had to rewind the tape. You had to take a second and rewind the tape if you wanted to, if you wanted to find something.

SPEAKER_04 11:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Or we would go explore outside. So there was enough space in one's brain and enough movement to just have space to think or space to be or space to imagine stuff. And I'm not, you know, I don't want to people say, oh, she's old now and she I I understand the world is a different place, but I also understand, I think there's a lack of value on doing things like that. There's a to me, especially if you're, you know, in a in a I shouldn't even say that, I I just think, you know, if you're not out moving around all the time, then there's a certain perhaps judgment about that or thought process. And I would argue, I would argue for many people, silence just to be able to sit tight and do nothing or hang out at home without having to fill up a day with external activities, um, is pretty cool. And I get it's not for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

I've I've been giving this a lot of thought since we we brought this concept up. And I I think the idea of generational acceptance is part of it, but I I think a lot has to do with programming. And what I mean by that is so many generations have have come up with 24-hour news cycles, right? That was the start of it. Right. Not only did you watch the news, right? When I was a kid, you just watched the news and then TV was over, right? But then it then it was 24-hour news cycles. And then it wasn't enough that it was 24-hour news cycles. There was also a a tickler running on the bottom of all the other stuff that's happening. So you have someone talking and you have something going. And I I say that to say silence to a lot of people is painful because of the programming that we should always be stimulated by something. And so I I don't know if silence is the same amount of peace to s to to certain generations as it would have been to ones that grew up with it.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah, that makes perfectly good sense to me.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

You know, I I don't know if this was the part of the show we wanted to talk about like even doom scrolling to get there. Um but before you get on that.

Defining Silence Beyond No Sound

SPEAKER_04 14:02

I think we should we should define, like for the purposes of our own conversation, and we didn't do this before. I would love to know. There's the definition of silence, right? There's a technical definition, and I mean, there's even uh there's even a uh a phobia. It's a sedative sedaphobia, it's the intense irrational fear of silence or quiet environments, right? Um there's the sounds of silence, there's meditative silence, there's it then as you're describing it, Phil. There's so when you think of the concept, and maybe it's not the definition, but when you think of the concept and the construct of silence, how do you define that, Phyllis?

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Um genuinely sometimes I like silence. Like I like to not have anything on in my house, no external noise when I'm milling around. Um sometimes I define silence as the absence of any um uh external uh can I say it to you this way? Any should-haves. I should be at the party I decided I wasn't gonna go to. I should clean the house because it's Saturday. I should go ahead and sit down and do some writing because I, you know, I like to write and I haven't done it for a couple of weeks. And that in and of itself is loud to me. The should of life is very, very noisy to me because there's a layer of whatever. There's a layer of guilt, there's a layer of uh mild anxiety, like in in particular ways. Um, there's a layer I'm not doing what's expected of me. And so uh for a lot of the time, um silence really is doing not reading silence is reading a book. Silence is looking at recipes. Silence is doing something quiet that makes my heart sing, that makes me really happy.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

You know, it's interesting that you say expectations of you, because when I think of that, I don't think of the expectations that other people put on me, but it's actually the expectations of myself that is disappointing when I don't do something.

SPEAKER_08 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

I would agree. No one else has said, oh, you should be cleaning the house or you should be doing this. Um I I find silence um sometimes scary. I don't actually I don't enjoy silence sometimes because then my brain starts wandering off into directions that I don't need it to go. So there are a lot of times where where I don't want to sit in silence. I do yeah, I I do I do need to hear something or watch something or be distracted.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yeah, I think sometimes not all I mean, we're all making generalized statements here, so I hope our listeners understand that, right? But I think sometimes going into the dark places, for me, I will speak just for myself, is really important. So I because there's something there to learn, or something I need to face, or something I need to process. And at some point, whether it's in the silence or I think the the universe is very uh uh clever in this way, it'll come at another time in another place. But only for me, in the courage of that silence, am I typically able to start to make it to the other side of what's of what's waiting on the other side. And again, that's that is strictly for me. But I will say what I think is probably more of a truism is that in the um never-ending um um world of uh stimulation, right? So many options, Mark, even if we got to the scrolling or to whatever, all of the things that um um I can't help but wonder what we don't get to as human beings for ourselves. To your point, there's no way, so I'll use myself, there's no way to get rid of the should, right? The the self-expectation of, well, you know, if we're just gonna be at home, then you know, I really should clean the refrigerator. And I am like so fortunate that I have a husband who says, when I actually do nothing, he's like, I'm so proud of you for just sitting, like for not doing any of that, because you need to rest, because it makes me happy to watch you rest and recharge and just have a minute, you know, five minutes, 10 minutes, two hours to yourself. Um Yeah, so I'm always very curious about what we're what we're creating um with all of the movement and the swishing around.

SPEAKER_04 18:55

So to tee up, maybe Mark, I think we're heading towards the Doom Scrolling. There's a couple of thoughts that are are hearkening back to some previous shows we've talked about with decision regret. Um this is really astonishing, Phil, because in all my life I've never thought about the concept of silence and and its many different forms. So I'm gonna flip this on its script, and you kind of said this earlier. If if I'm gonna define silence, I think it's easier for me to say what is the opposite of silence, and that is noise. And noise is much for me, is much easier to determine a quick definition because there is mental noise, there is auditory noise, there is sensory noise, there is time noise, there are people noise. Um I often refer in my and all the time in my keynotes to to traffic, you know, the concept that if you want to, you know, when we talk about value, we're we're we're at like how do you define value? It's like rush hour uh in the busiest highway in in LA, in the freeway in LA. It's 22 lanes of traffic. And how do we get ourselves down to one lane? And I think that's actually applicable here. We have so much noise, and so part of the reason we have so much noise, I think, does tie to that decision regret. Like we don't want to miss out on something. Well, what if I choose this? I could be doing that. The second part is that mental health concept that you're talking about, which is uh I've got to get better at whatever I'm doing, or I'm afraid with of my own thoughts. I mean, literally, there are obviously mental health issues where people cannot. That that's a struggle for them. They they need drug intradiction to to help them cope. Um and then there's just and then there's just a huge issue, which I think is maybe the underpinning of what you're saying, is we don't we've lost an ability, I think, in many ways, to know how to find silence, how to quiet the noise, how to decompress, which in large part ties to what you were going to talk about.

Doomscrolling And Constant Stimulation

SPEAKER_00 21:10

I wonder if the issue really isn't um this notion of free time, but it's more um our relationship with quiet.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

I think I think so, but I I think Al, you you touched on something of understanding how to be quiet. And what is silence? So you might ask somebody, well, what is sitting quietly? And I had a a handful of friends, let's say there's five friends, four of them might say, sitting and playing on my phone is my quiet time. Uh, sitting, listening to the radio, watching the news is my quiet time, reading the paper or whatever. Um whatever that is. And and and is that truly silence? Or is that manufactured silence? And when I started doing this research on Doom Scrolling, It's incredible the crutch this has been for people. And I'm I'm curious if we've lost the ability and the understanding of what sitting in silence is. I I don't know. Um but I'm gonna share because I think this is a per perfect part. And I and I broke this down by age, and I don't want to sound like I'm just sitting here talking about spitting out facts here, but teens now daily time on a device. Now, these are teens 13 to 18, which means they're in they're in school during the day, right? And and a lot of schools allow you to have your phone, but 7.3 hours a day, that's nine days a month, is what that adds up to, and 111 days a year on their device. Young adults, 18 to 29, 7 hours a day, 106 days a year, 30 to 49, 99 days per year, older adults, 50 plus, right? That's how they broke it down, is 5.3 hours a day, 22% of your life, 1,935 hours a year, which is 81 days. So 81 days a year of someone who is between the ages of you know, 50 plus, I don't know what the top end of that is, is spent on a device doom scrolling.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Is it specifically doom scrolling? So it's not like on your phone looking at other things that says scrolling.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now, again, this is uh from from you know a large language model from AI. So I I I mean, take it for what it is. It it pulls from lots of different sources. But let's let's say it's just directionally correct, right? That is a tremendous amount of time. You're you're talking about between the ages of 13 and 50 some odd years old, people are spending days, days a year. Oh, I take that back. Now isolate doom scrolling. I was incorrect. Let me re let me fix this. 45 days per year for teens, 50 plus 23 days a year doom scrolling. So almost a month doom scrolling. Out of a year. 50 plus out of a year. 548 hours. So what did that replace? That's a great question. What did that replace? And and what's funny is the the the the thought of maybe even being able to pay attention. I mean, how many conversations are you in today where someone is holding the device um at dinners while you're on the phone with them in business meetings? What are they looking at? Can we it's that back to that CNN, you know, when it originally came out. You had some some some anchors and then you had the the ticker on the bottom. Uh like this is now I I've got to have not only one thing of input coming in, I've got to have 10 things of input at the same time. So silence must seem scary. It's and and also I'll I'll bring some some I don't know, I'll end it on this. I was going through uh Paul Simon's Sound of Silence, and I thought it was kind of cool because this this song was written, I think, in the um mid-60s, and it says uh here, and the people bowed and prayed to the neon God they made. Um, and uh and the sign flashed out its warning in the words that it was forming, and the sign said, The words of the prophets are written on subway walls and tenement halls. And so it just I had this image of um everybody looking at their phone. That's that's the the neon God, and the what's written on the subway walls and tenement halls is our social media.

SPEAKER_04 26:00

Hmm. Okay. You gotta whip up some really cool AI art for that. I know, right? Seriously. I mean, so that we can do some posts with that.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

How'd he know that we were gonna we were gonna get there?

SPEAKER_04 26:16

So, Phil, what do you think it replaced? I mean, I I think you pointed uh uh a GPS in the way, uh, you know, we I I was thinking about well, hold on. Before I'm curious what your take is on this, Phil. When I start to think about free time, and I think about I mean I am forever active. I have a month uh a monthly poker game with my buddies, uh, I play pickleball during the week, you know, work, and I um and I I question sometimes and I call it slowing down, slowing down. And and I do that mental downtime. But are are our Phyllis, are you saying that there's not a prescription for silence that it's unique to the individual, but that the real challenge you believe might be that we don't investigate our own ability to find quiet? You said quiet earlier, or mental downtime. What if the mental downtime is is pleasurable, even if it's stimulating? Is that still silence for that person?

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yeah, I mean, who am I to judge on that one? What I think the reason I said and brought up the complexity of silence, I think really got stirred up for me in the way that we came to it, which is around hobbies. How do you pick your hobbies? How do you fill your time? When you have time, how do you do it? And what I'm saying is I I'll just speak for myself. Like I have a hard time with people who have to fill every minute of every day doing something. I don't understand how I don't understand where any thought comes in, what I said before, where one uh takes time to think about life in and of itself, or to think about, Mark, as you said, the things that may scare you. I don't understand how people grow. Um, I don't understand where creativity will come from. I don't understand how exploration will happen if every minute of every day is either at work or you're thinking about the eight hours or 10 hours that you have on a weekend and you have to do this and you have to do that, and you have to do the next thing, and you have to drive there and you have to go to the grocery store, and you have to meet the person, you have to go shopping, you have to do this. It's it's it is crazy making to me because we I've you've heard me say this on the show before, because that makes us human doings. It doesn't make us human beings. And what I think have has gotten lost over time, Mark, whether it's from the hours of scrolling or let's go here, let's go there, let's go do this, is the ability just to sit and be perfectly satisfied in a room with your family, in a room with maybe some friends, to be really grateful, like to taste your food, to be really grateful for the what I would say are the things in life that are most meaningful. I'm not saying don't do stuff. What I am saying is I see it all the time. People are running around. People are literally running around, like literally running around. And it's and we talk about balance. Oh my God, people have made a thousand dollars. Balance. Let me tell you how to balance your life. When you sit down for five minutes, sit down for five minutes and think about that for a minute because we actually have control of our schedules. My husband says it to me all the time. Who's making your schedule? I'm making my schedule. Stop filling up the schedule.

SPEAKER_04 30:34

The as you were talking, I was shaking my head and it struck me.

Activity Versus Presence In Daily Life

SPEAKER_04 30:41

Activity. That's that's I mean, you all know, as if you're you're stall, you know, stallmates with us, you know. Mark sums it all up. I have to do it in real time. And it and it is has to do with activity. And and here's what here's what you said that brought up about this visual. This happened a couple of days ago. Well, actually, because we were gonna actually record this show in a previous day. So the day before we were gonna previously record it, I was walking with Cash, my dog. Uh, it was uh I gotten up at 5:15. I usually get up at 5:30 between 5 and 5:30. I got up at 5.15. I wanted a few extra minutes for a longer walk. Uh, I looked up at the sky and it was a beautiful, beautiful moon. And I just said, wow, that is the moon. And it was right when Artemis was uh in space, and I was started thinking to myself, wow, I'm down here in Jacksonville, Florida, in Springfield, uh walking around with my dog at 520-ish in the morning now at this point, looking at this beautiful moon, and there's like somebody up in space doing what they're doing. And then I started thinking about uh all of that, and I literally stopped myself and said, just look at the moon, just breathe, take a deep breath of fresh air, don't think about all that, even though it was fun and cool. And I think that's the that's there's the mental side of that, which is just stop and smell the roses, in this case, stop and appreciate the moon. Um, but there was something peaceful to being by myself with my dog, taking time to recognize what was happening around me. And and so it it's layers, and that was quote unquote an activity, but it's different, sounds different than completely different than what the activity you're talking about that we're all subject to, which is filling the calendar. Does that make does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 32:49

It does. I mean, I was poking around just to see what I could find, and um, there's a large study from the American Um Psychological Association that found that people with very little discretionary time feel stressed. But people with too much unstructured time can feel unhappy if they don't know how to sit with it. And the meaning is it's not about filling the time, it's about how comfortable we are with being present in it.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Oh shit, man.

SPEAKER_05 33:29

All right, Mark.

SPEAKER_06 33:37

How comfortable we are sitting with it.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Obviously there's a lot of being present in it.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

But what does present in it mean?

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Well, to means I'm aware, I'm taking the time to feel it, see it, taste it, be aware of it, feel joy around it, feel anger around it, feel something about it, feel something around it, notice it, versus in my mind at least, the run. The run to it, the run away from it, the run to fill it. That's me. So that's my interpretation.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

For me, for me, I I think where where it might be a little bit of a different definition is this. I'm okay with silence sounding like um contemplating the moon, right? It it could also be thinking through on my own terms and my own time, things that need to get solved in my world. I I think where it is a waste of time for me and where I get frustrated with quote unquote silence is when I look for distractions within that time. And distractions to me is filling my brain with other people's drama. So doom scrolling. It's either watching people get uh rested, uh, it's it's you know, silly videos on God knows what, you know, whatever, whatever my algorithm shows up. That to me doesn't settle my brain. But silence can be thinking, it can be problem solving. But with but but to me, and only, you know, again, everybody's got their own thing, being comfortable with it, being present in it, doesn't mean that I have to be thoughtless.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Um I I just I just don't want to be distracted. Right. So it's a little bit different.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

No, it's a great way to say it.

SPEAKER_05 35:56

I'm still back at this idea of being present.

SPEAKER_04 36:04

Um I mean let's be clear. If you're listening to this, well, first of all, our our job, quote unquote, in this podcast is to create a platform for thought uh about the things that are so complex um and maybe can be a little less complex one conversation at a time, a little less complicated. Um and and we're there there's no end to the level of complexity because each person defines silence on their own. But uh I'm I'm looking at two things right now. If I had to pull a cord to where we are right now that like makes sense, it's this concept of presence and activity. Like if we're if we're constantly filling our life with activity, then it's noise. You can lessen that noise if your presence within those activities is fully engaged. Um i.e. this podcast, um you know, we have to be present here, we have to show up for this time together. If we weren't, it would be noise and it would it would create a bad show. Um, but I got noise, news, uh news for you. In its own right, this show is silence for me. I would describe this show as silence for Al because the presence of the two of you, my presence, the focus, um, the beauty of the freeness of it is not at all uh anything that creates noise or makes me feel anxious. And so, in my interpretation of this, this is a form of silence. Um, maybe meditation is another word. But I am now able to look at this very clearly and go, wait a minute, you have way too much activity in your life, Al. That activity is creating a gap for you to celebrate more silence and be present. And that's again, that's that's that's my Al's interpretation. But I'm curious what what you guys think about that, those two threads of you know, activity and presence.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

I I think that if you are recharged from it, maybe it's doing its job. And and I think the complexity of of silence, if we get down to the meaning of the show, has to come back to being comfortable but how'd how'd you say it, Phyllis? Being comfortable?

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Comfortable, being present.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Being present.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

And not filling time.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

And and maybe it's just however you want to do that. What what I find in a lot of our shows, and what the feedback I've had from some of our shows is um the how. So great concept. What does that mean? So if I'm feeling like I'm filling my time, if I feel like um I have to doom scroll to relax, if I feel a fear of the silence, if I'm not comfortable, um what what could I actually do? And I know we're not here to solve problems, but I'm just curious. I feel like at this point in the show, may maybe it would be good for us to talk about a few things that we do to help us be more present in that silence that our listeners could take away.

Small Practices To Relearn Quiet

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Yep. So for I would offer this, if you really, really struggle with it, like really struggle of any downtime at all, like heaven forbid, then start like like everything starts with something, right? So take 10 minutes. Ten minutes of just 10 minutes. Is it really that bad? 10 minutes to sit quietly. Maybe it's sit and read a magazine article, maybe it's listen to music, but less at something like that. Um I would also say this because I think on one of her shows, I told you all, like when I wake up at three o'clock in the morning, I'm perpetually watching every episode of Sex in the City, like for the 875th time. But after that show, I just made a decision to not do that as hard as that is. And it's taken me a little while, but I don't do it anymore. So now when I wake up at three o'clock in the morning, I just have other um mechanisms to help me go back to sleep. And it takes a little, it's, you know, at the beginning, it just took a little bit longer to do that. I also think the way to decomplexify things sometimes, and I think this often at after each show, is to just take a little time and think about it. Like you got to think about whatever we're talking about here means to you. If you've taken the time to listen to the show and something has made you mad, or something has made you happy, or something has made you feel something, then take a minute to think about it, or write something down, or don't write something down and then take another step toward whatever that is, because that's how you make change over time. It's really, I think the only way are is little incremental steps. And you might listen to this and say, I don't care. I like every hour of every day being being filled up. But if something in this conversation is resonating with you about maybe about a simpler time in your life, about not always having a phone in your hand, being connected like that, because it wasn't always like that, depending on how old you are, about going outside for a minute, right? About going outside for a minute to literally sniff the flowers, or just look across the street, or whatever. Or if there's any way to find a little space to not be scheduled, like a tiny little space, one day even in a month, to not be scheduled out to the max, try it. What's the worst that'll happen?

SPEAKER_01 42:37

So I I have two. One is based on our conversation of personal expectations. So because we set these expectations on ourselves, you have every right to change your own expectations. And I think it starts, I think it starts there of if you're finding yourself feeling guilty for not cleaning your refrigerator, for not vacuuming, for not doing the yard work, for not doing X, Y, or Z, maybe you have messed up your own expectations. And when that happens for other things, I typically ask people, um, if I came to you for advice and said I was disappointed in myself for um, you know, feeling this way, what advice would you would you give me? And and what advice would I give them? Right. So think about what advice you would give somebody if they came to you and said, man, I am, I've got this and I've got this and I've got this, and I feel terrible about it. Would what what would you say to them to make them feel better? And how would you help them change their expectations? Well, take your own advice, right? You can you have that's something you actually have control and power of. The second piece is based in our show. And we're the complexity of toilet paper and we have stall humor. So, Phyllis, you talked about not um being connected with your device. So maybe for the next five times you go to the bathroom, leave your phone outside of the bathroom. Leave your phone outside of the bathroom. I know that sounds ridiculous, but don't take it with you. And and and see what happens. Is it such a terrible experience to go to the bathroom and not have your phone with you? So those are my two.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Those are great two. I love those two. I wish I would have thought of them myself.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

Yeah, I'm gonna try the whole bathroom no phone thing.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Uh you really take your phone to the bathroom with you.

SPEAKER_04 44:43

I I do because I check scores, uh, I uh do stupid videos. I just gonna, you know what I need to do is I had a conversation with friends the other day about a bidet. And uh, you know, maybe if I get a bidet, I will I'll be so entertained I won't need my phone.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

Mark, help me. Why is Al always in the bathroom now? He's in there for we'll have to call rescue unit or something because you won't be able to stand up.

SPEAKER_04 45:13

I'm sure too long. So I've my two and and part of this is akin to something you said, Phil. Um and I've referenced this in some previous shows through my my focus and my work, you know, through learning some Tony Robbins stuff and some other meditative. Um the first five minutes of my day. I my brain activity, and I I don't, you know, I don't know if this is typical or not, but my brain activity, I mean, I wake up and 98% of the time it goes, it's it's awake right away. Like complex stuff too. Like it's just anyway, but I I have now wired my brain to have a practice of my first five minutes of my day consists of breathing and a um manifestation, which is basically this leads me to the second thing. Um, but that first five minutes of your day, or maybe it's three minutes for you, maybe it's ten, maybe it's one minute. Just take a deep breath, think about where you are, your feet on the floor, your your hands on your lap or wherever, and just be present. Don't immediately ignite the, what is it, amygular, whatever it is. Don't immediately ignite the brain by looking at the phone, or immediately ignite it by looking about thinking about what you have to do. Not only is that a good idea, neurologically, it's poison if you don't do that. If you start tricking the brain with the basically battery leads, and uh you're you're you're you're setting yourself up and you can do all the research on it and stuff, it's out there. Um and give yourself that blessing. You that's the and and oh by the way, that's the time you can control because by the time you get midway through the day, the day is off to the races, and you may not get that five minutes back. But you have that five. So that leads to the second thing, which is um I used to say I don't have a choice. Bullshit. I have lots of choices. Um, and when you say this is the choice that I do have, I have a choice to take that first five minutes, three minutes. You're now giving yourself control. And that's all of us need control, all of us want control. Um and Phyllis, this just came to me. Like when I came to see you in Charleston, we were very intentional about not wanting to pack everything in. I think one of the afternoons we went out and and then we just came back to the house, just took naps and hung out, and you know, whatever happened happened. Um I think about my golf trip. Um I have been organizing a golf trip with my brothers uh and best friends. Uh, it's coming up on our 13th, 14th year, uh literally a couple of weeks from the recording of this, and uh, it will have happened by the time this airs. And uh I have said for numerous years, one year I'm just gonna go and not feel busy. That is so sad to me. Now, don't get me wrong, I have incredible memories, but I for so long have been planning, and and I say, oh, it's because and I'm like, no, screw that. And and I'm making a commitment right now to the two of you that I have a choice about that five days of golf in Lake Lore, North Carolina, and I'm gonna choose to exercise that choice. So the choice of what you do control for your time is the second advice. But you have to sit down, I think, and ask yourself, what is my choice? Where do I have a choice? And what are the choices I'm gonna make? And that's not gobbledygoop hard stuff. It's just write it down. First five minutes, you know, Mark, it's very simple. Hey, I'm not gonna bring the phone in the bathroom. You know, so uh I love what each of us has has suggested, and we're gonna we're gonna this we're gonna drop those in the key in the uh show notes as well in a kind of a list form so you can

Listener Challenge And Closing Silence

SPEAKER_04 49:38

see them. Hopefully they provide you some some insight. And uh as we socialize this, or if you're listening to this, by all means, you know, follow us on on our various social media and share with us what what you're doing. How do you find silence? How do you define silence? I think this is the first of what could be multitudes of conversations about this. Any uh any parting thoughts, my fellow stallmates?

SPEAKER_00 50:09

I got nothing.

SPEAKER_02 50:13

Nope. I think we said it all. Do we just ride into the distance with silence? Yeah. We we could, yeah. Hello, darkness, my old friend. All right.

SPEAKER_04 50:29

This is the complexity of toilet paper.