The Quietening
The older I get, and especially the deeper into my career I get, the quieter I’ve become. No longer am I this sentence has been redacted until further notice . No longer will I this sentence has been redacted until further notice . No more will I just make this sentence has been redacted until further notice . I just don’t do it any more. And it’s not out of any particular sense of grievance or discord. It’s mainly that I’m just this sentence has been redacted until further notice . I remember having a conversation with a senior executive, and we got chatting about generative artificial intelligence. I shared some of the work I’d been doing, which now four years deep into working with it, has become fairly substantial. “You’ve quite the imagination” they said. And while it was a completely throwaway comment, and it was nothing, I’ve thought a lot about that since. It’s true. I do have quite an imagination. this sentence has been redacted until further notice . But it’s something I often just keep to myself. For as much as I share, what gets published is about one percent of everything going through my head. I’m trying to do a better job of writing it all down, but there’s a lot which gets edited out. I am a work in progress, but quiet on the inside and loud on the outside. The need to recharge after a day of talking to others is immediate, and urgent.
But it’s also the quiet of the cacophony of this sentence has been redacted until further notice . We all know those people who just love to talk. And talk. And talk. Perhaps I even used to be one of them, to greatly annoying effect I’m sure. I can spot the desperation in them as they suck the air out of the room. Grasping at a miserable sense of articulating their value to others, when of course, the only value is the silence which arrives from them finally shutting up. In brainstorming sessions these are the folks with the worst ideas delivered with absolute confidence. Very often these folks are stuck. this sentence has been redacted until further notice . Frustrated in their careers, and the seeming deficits of those around them, they cling to the tactics of needing to articulate what they know to as many people as will listen. But that’s really the point. Few people actually do listen. And when they listen enough times, they realize how foolish they’re being. When people ask me about this, I always say the same thing. That I try to speak least, and last. That quiet people in meetings are doing all the listening, but they’re also doing all the watching. They’re seeing everything that’s happening in a way those who are constantly talking cannot. I once went this sentence has been redacted until further notice . An old manager of mine once told me that those who keep silent have all the power in a group gathering. It’s something that’s taken me twenty years to learn, and even longer to do. I’ve always been the this sentence has been redacted until further notice . this sentence has been redacted until further notice .The one keen to this sentence has been redacted until further notice.. The one who’ll share just because. And especially when I have something I think is hysterical. These days on the rarer occasions where I slip, I spend the rest of the day, and especially those moments before sleep, cringing at myself. And since I’ve started being quieter in my heightened observance I’ve noticed others above me also doing it. I always thought they were terse in their responses because they were busy. this sentence has been redacted until further notice . Now I think this sentence has been redacted until further notice.. It’s something I’ve come to admire in others as a trait I wish I didn’t still have to work on.
There’s moments of frustration with it all of course. Moments where I wish I just hadn’t said the thing I said. Or moments where you just wish the other person would just shut the fuck up and give their lungs and our ears a fucking rest for a change. My moments of regret are getting fewer, but the moments of inner rage are often present, and the growing desire to just call everything out as bullshit a clear and ever present danger. Will I ever this sentence has been redacted until further notice ? Should I ever publish this sentence has been redacted until further notice ? There’s risk associated with this sentence has been redacted until further notice right? Does this end up being a cathartic exercise in editing as much as a release of writing? It’s also that I crave moments of quiet around me as much as within me. Those spaces of calm in the world where one can actually breathe and recover from the noise of everywhere else. But these spaces are shrinking. And even in those spaces of calm we try to fill them with device. Even as I write this and stare out into the ocean, this sentence has been redacted until further notice there’s distant misophonic beachfront construction and the rumble of the main boulevard’s empties going on in the background. In post-pandemic efforts to go back to the office, I spend a lot of my time chatting with people in person. I enjoy it and I’m truly blessed by a great team of affable, hard-working and thoughtful people around me. this sentence has been redacted until further notice . this sentence has been redacted until further notice . But I’ve no stamina. I am exhausted after a day in the office, and if I make the mistake of sitting down once I get home, the blood feels like it sinks to my feet like lead, and it’s lights out in front of EastEnders. I look back on the fifteen years I spent commuting by train into the city five days a week, often with evening extracurricular activities on top of it all, and don’t even recognize myself. Another life, but also another person. The last day I spent working in the city I was in my pajamas eating Chinese food by 5.45pm, and fast asleep in bed by 8.30pm.
this sentence has been redacted until further notice .This isn’t catharsis, it’s embrace. I’ve come to really love the quiet, and will actively seek it out. I’ll remove myself from arrangements and commitments to optimize for it. this sentence has been redacted until further notice . I feel better with it, and worse without it. I crave those experiences which lean into it. Going to the movies in the afternoon and being the only person in the theater. Spending the day on my own wondering around a museum. Reading for hours just because. I’ve come to realize, perhaps finally realize, that this isn’t something I do, it’s something I am.
