Creativity in Silence

Silence can be a powerful catalyst for creativity. When we allow ourselves to sit in stillness, our minds can wander freely, leading to unexpected insights and ideas. For many, including the author, these quiet moments serve as a backdrop for organizing thoughts and planning future endeavors.

Ma: Between Sounds
Exploring the quiet spaces between thought, story, and modern life.

More soon.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Sound stripe. Hello again. I hope everyone is having as good a time as is possible in the environment we are currently living in. I um have been thinking a lot about um moth and what goes on between sounds for us humans. And for me, it's where a lot of thinking happens. When I'm in the sound and I'm going with it, I'm not really creative. And then um I sit down at my desk and I just let myself be. And sure, of course, there's sound, but then there's this feeling of no sound. Nothing's there. And uh what it what it brought to me was actually a quote that I I really like, and it's here we are trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why. That's Kurt Vonnegut from Slaughterhouse 5. To me, that is a great example of Ma because he's saying we're trapped in this moment, and we can't go anywhere, we can't do anything about it, and we all keep searching for a why, and he's saying there's not. Maybe there isn't, maybe there isn't a why. As an existentialist, I believe that we are born without a purpose, and then we find the purpose that works for us, and for me it's always been words, the written words, what it could mean. But lately, I've been spending more time in the the nether world of no sound and letting my mind just wander when I have the ability to, when my kids are in bed and my wife is either asleep or at work, and I'm in my office and it's generally quiet. There's sounds, and I like to listen to classical music at night, so there's that. But then today I was listening to Mozart's Requiem, and there are moments there where things just pause, where you're getting a feel for the fact that this is the last thing that Mozart wrote, and it was his requiemness. But in those seconds of nothingness, I start to realize how much creativity can happen in those in those, and it's the small moments that that give us the time to create or to think whatever your version is of creation. It might not be creating, it might be planning or organizing, depending upon what type of human you are. For me, it's organization and planning, and it's in those moments that I I suddenly realize that I've got 20 different projects that I want to do, and I really need to slow down. And it's those, it's the between the sounds that I I realize it. Because when there's sound, when there's movement, when everything is going really quickly, I'm not really paying attention to how much I'm trying to fit in a day. But today, when I was listening to Mozart Requiem and there was this space between uh one say song between another, I I realized, hold on, I need to take a step back and think what's important and what can I accomplish, what do I want to accomplish? And this was on my list and has been, and so I wanted to come back and see how everyone's doing. I would like my fourth episode to be an interview with someone. So I'm I'm out there talking to my friends, saying if someone is interested in just doing a 10-minute talk with me about how does the between the sound, how does it affect them? Do they get anything from it? Have they ever thought about it? I I didn't think about it until I found a children's book that I read to my own children, and um it was such an eye-opening experience for me about that there is something between sounds, and I'm not even talking about silence, because silence in its own way, there's still sounds going on, we still hear things. To me, the best analogy would be meditation, because in meditation I clear the sound from my mind, and I work on my mind being empty. There are days that I get there, and it's probably only for a few minutes, but I get there and there's nothing going on. It's just me not even thinking, just meditating, letting letting the earth talk to me, letting the between the sounds, letting it come to me. And then after I'm done, I have this ability to think about all the things that happen during no sound. And it's amazing what can happen to you, what comes to you, what happens to you, what what earth, what meditation, what for me Buddha, what it what all of that brings to me. And I leave refreshed and I feel renewed, and then I I just have a clarity in my mind of where I need to be, what I need to be doing, and how I need to get there. And that was from clearing my mind and allowing the between the sound to just happen. And sometimes it's only two minutes. Sometimes I've got so much going on in my brain that it's two minutes, but in those two minutes, so much happens. And I wanted to bring that to you, and I'm interested to hear one day does that happen to you? Do you ever have those moments between sounds where things occur to you, but they don't come back until you rejoin the sound, and then all of a sudden there's a flood of knowledge and ideas, and for me, things I want to create. It's it's amazing, it's amazing to me. So that's what's happened to me lately, and I I hope all of you have been having a safe and good time in your life. I know that the world is not having a good time, and next time I'll I'll mention what goes on for me in the space that I have for what's going on in our world. Thank you. This podcast has been produced by Sentinel Studios.