“Silence In The Age of Noise” is written by Erling Kagge and is a personal exploration to his meaning of silence and how anyone can find it in their day to day lives. The blurb reads:
“Norwegian explorer Elring Kagge once spent fifty days walking solo across Antarctica, his radio broken.
In this charming, quietly life-changing book- now an international publishing phenomenon- he takes us on a journey to unlock the power of silence. And he shows us how to find perfect silence in our daily lives, however busy we are.”
I was drawn to this book for two reasons, it was written and is an account of antarctic explorer. And the topic of conversation is about finding inner peace an silence in the landscape which is something I have increasingly found myself doing over the past few years.
I am going to quote some of the passages of this book that spoke out to me the most. Also making me think about how I am finding inner silence in being connected to the land and how I can show this through my expressive outlet, photography.
“At home there’s always a car passing, a telephone ringing, pinging, or buzzing, someone talking, whispering or yelling. There are so many noises that we barely hear them all. Here it was different. Nature spoke to me in the guise of silence. The quieter I became, the more I heard”
“On my way towards the South Pole, I imagined the man in the moon looking down to earth. There wasn’t a sound from our planet that was able to reach nearly 240,000 miles up to him, but he could see our planet and let his gaze wander far south. There, he saw a boy in a blue anorak trudging further and further in across the ice, only setting up his tent in the evenings. The next day he would emerge from the tent and the ritual was repeated. The man in the moon watched the boy head in the same direction, week after week. He must have thought the boy was nuts. Late one afternoon, just before I was to conclude my day’s journey and pitch my tent, I peered up into the sky and imagined the man in the mooning turning his gaze far north. Far below he could observe thousands, if not millions, of people leaving their tiny houses early in the day only to sit in traffic for a few minutes or an hour. As if in a silent movie. Then they arrive at large buildings, where they remain indoors for eight, ten or twelve hours seated in front of a screen, before returning via the same traffic jam back to their tiny houses. At home, they eat dinner and watch the news on TV at the same time each night. Year after year. The only difference over time would be that some of those people- perhaps the most ambitious of them would move io a slightly bigger house to spend their nights. As I released my ski binding that evening to pitch camp, I felt calmer and more content.”
“These are times when silence is reassuring. I look for that within myself. From minute to minute. It might take place in the outdoors, but it could just as easily occur as I head to the office, when I take a moment to pause just before a meeting or pull back from a conversation. Shutting out the world is not about turning your back on your surroundings, but rather the opposite: it is seeing the world a bit more clearly, staying a course and trying to love your life. Silence in itself is rich. It is exclusive and luxurious.”
“Silence is about rediscovering, through pausing, the things that bring us joy.”
Hearing Erling Kagge talk about silence, it is clear that his philosophy is built around it. You can take the word “Silence” in a very literal sense, no noise. However, when you search for a deeper meaning, you find the silence that is within. This is a silence that is not the same for everyone, some people may connect with it regularly and others might struggle or not even think about it. It is an internal concept and words will never be able to express what it actually means to you and I.
I find myself connecting with this silence on a regular basis. When I am out in the landscape by myself and when I take time out of my day to meditate and find the silence within. It is something that worlds can only outline and going forward I am going to try and express the meanings in the photographs that I take out in the Landscape.