An ocean of silence

There is an ocean of silence between us and I am drowning in it - Anonymous

This quote stayed in my mind for long after I had read it. It reverberated inside me like bells chiming in my sound-starved ears. Here, I am not talking about the normal sounds we involuntarily hear in between opening and closing our eyes. But, it's the voice that pats us softly and tells us, "your pleasure and pain affects me." Let's accept it, we all secretly crave for that motherly voice. In today's times when we strictly stick to "health and weather" kind of communication even with our relatives, neighbors and friends; we have depleted our emotional health exhaustively.

We all live a cocooned life amidst the crowded surroundings. All of us are self contained in our own cages. So much so, that we isolate our existence from the rest of the world. Each of us become individual entities detached from the megacosm; its live components and its matter.  We have clearly distanced ourselves from each other in this false show of "I am fine".  But the matter to introspect here is to ask the same question to ourselves - "Are we really fine?" How many of you got a truly honest 'positive' answer? I think, hardly a few of us or may be not even a few. The answer to the same question changes as the questioner changes. Why this anomaly? Probably because we have cut off our deep emotional connect from our fellow humans. In the absence of this heart to heart talk with our near and dear ones we have created a sea of silence all around us. We all have dug moats circling our life-forts and even keep alligators of tight-lipped curtsy in them to keep the world at bay. Gradually, the centripetal force of silence transforms these personal moats to separate oceans.

Oceans of silence! Deep enough to drown us all inch by inch. Now the natural question that springs up is - "Is there any way out?" I would say the answer is subjective depending upon person to person. Even better question here would be - "Do we really wish to come out?" The ray of light would only be visible to the ones who give a positive reply to themselves. Rest all are sure to drown.

Next question in line is -"How do we come out of this self-imposed garb of privacy?" The answer is as simple as finding an opposite word. To counteract the centripetal force of silence we need to bring in the centrifugal force of speech. This whirlwind of equal and opposite force will propel and fling off the water of 'silence' paving a dry path for communication. We all can save each other from drowning into the ocean of silence by opening up and offering the life jacket of words to each other. We just have to reach out and talk. It's not that difficult if we look at the children and learn from them the art to talk and laugh together. Instead of oceans of silence, if we build roads of speech, we would be running on the highway of mutual care, attention and support. The high-mast lighting of empathy on these roads will fill us all with the light of hope, optimism and joy of life.

It's up to you now if you let yourselves drown in the ocean of silence or build roads of speech and run blissfuly. What would you choose for yourself? Huh?