Inspiration
I find my inspiration to write in my morning hikes. I do not start with an intention or an idea. I let the body moves an just see what comes. In the last fews days I have heard nothing. Just Silence. No ideas surfacing. No thread pulling forwards. Just the trail. My footsteps. The fresh air. Nature.
But the rest of the world is not silent. Far from it. And I am not only taking about the astounding noise of the bombs fallings. I am talking about the fact that everyone seems to have an opinion to share and speaks like an expert. And yet despite the plethora of shares, it is hard to find an original idea. Mostly it is repackaging, a lot of repetition, a lot of noise, a lot of propaganda working hard to drown the truth.
Maybe the truth retreats into silence. Into the space before words.
So I asked myself: maybe I should write about silence?
Synchronicity
After my hike I came home and stumbled onto a post by Jessica Wildfire titled “An Ode to Nothing.” The synchronicity woke me. She was writing about the same territory, the exhaustion from the noise, the value of emptiness, the relief of having nothing to prove.
Her post became a cue.
Truth can only live in silence
I am always asking people “what is your experience before the words come in?” Before the mind uses the experience as material for stories? This is where the truth lives. Not in the story that comes after, not in the interpretations, not in the conclusions, not in the judgements, nor in the projections, but in the bare moment that precedes them.
Silence is the only place that permits truth.
Paradox
There is a paradox at the heart of this.
To speak of silence is to break it. To write about emptiness is to fill it. Creation is a destructive act. The musician breaks silence. The painter stains the white canvas. The filmmaker pierces darkness with light. The potter bends the formless into form.
And yet, what emerges from that destruction is alive.
The silence before the note is what gives the note its weight.
Filling Space
After two years on this Substack project, hundreds of posts and over 111,000 words written, I could sit down and write a post on almost any subject in a couple of hours. My mind knows how to fill space. But nothing in me wants to do that. To produce something simply because I can, feels like the very noise I am trying to step back from.
The absence of something to say is itself information.
I am choosing to listen to it.
Creation
From our inability to see perfection we go on fixing. Fixing assumes imperfection. We project a better outcome and spend our lives improving on what was never broken. But perfection cannot be fixed.
Creation is a different movement. It begins in silence, in listening to what is already there, and moves from that ground. Not correcting. Not improving.
Just responding to what the silence contains:
the pregnancy of the future wanting to be birthed.
Monastery
In November 2008 I spent a month in silence at Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu. It wasn’t a silent retreat (I’ve done many of those), yet I chose to remain silent among others who could speak freely.
The first few days were challenging. I had to sit with my desire to contribute, to participate in the conversations around me. But as I stayed silent, I began to see what was behind the urge to speak. I realized: I wasn’t offering anything to others, I was asking for something. To be seen. To be heard.
That realization brought a wave of humility.
I saw how much of what I said in life was not for the benefit of others but to affirm my own existence.
With that clarity, I made a promise, to speak with intention, to listen deeply, and to give myself the attention I kept asking for from others.
Return to simplicity
In the last few months I have been questioning my life in the United States. Watching what is done with my taxes has become increasingly difficult to accept. I have not made a decision. But quietly, and very intentionally, I have been emptying shelves, reducing clutter, identifying every friction point that would complicate a departure and removing it one by one.
This is a yogic way of living, returning to simplicity, to what is essential. It feels right. The body always knows before the mind catches up.
It is the same movement as silence, clearing space for what has not yet arrived.
Language of God
Pascal wrote in 1670:
All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
Rumi said something similar four centuries earlier, in his poetic register:
Silence is the language of God; everything else is poor translation.
Four hundred years apart. Same diagnosis.
We are in 2026 and we are still not listening.
PS: “Change Your Story, Change The World” is a storytelling endeavor that looks deeply into the psyche that creates the stories we live by.
Because the stories we tell are the reality we live.
Psalm 46, verse 10: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/cp/200918572