When I received my PhD my advisor, told me, “now, when somebody ask you a question you can say ‘ I don’t know.’” I could feel comfortable in a place of absence, of emptiness, because sometimes that absence is what is needed. That silence, that pause, is an a diminishing, but a way to move forward.
For the second week in a row, the prompt has tapped into something, unknowingly, that was already going on in my life. This past week my department had a coffee and doughnut get together and we, in true philosopher fashion, pondered “holes”. So bear with me for a minute – what is a hole? Seriously. What is a hole? The place where there is nothing, but is surrounded by some thing. Or is the hole something; is the absence, the nothing, something?
With this prompt I think of a hole as a something, a place of quiet, of listening, of the breath before the exhale and after the inhale.
YAAAAAS......This just filled a hole in my heart! The hole created by lack of wonderful philosophical DJs!!!! Thanks Jonathan!!! Solid gentle humor about.....DINOSOURS!!!!
Thanks for this Jonathan! I wonder, can I use this before defending the dissertation or do I get the honor of say "I dont know" right after I defend :) ?
Yes to holes! I have experienced some of them to be holy spaces.
Thanks Pádraig. Glad to hear I’m not the only one. Since this prompt, and my foray into the metaphysics of doughnut holes, I’ve been thinking more and more about how absence and nothingness shows up across all aspects of our lives. Much more to be investigated here.
I don't know can be a very powerful thing to say. I have won people over with "I don't know" simply because I admitted it, though I do always try to find the answer and get back to the person only to find often they don't even care, they have moved on. Great response, Jonathan! And fun, too :-)
Yes! I don’t know about other cultures or other times, but admitting that you don’t know something seems so taboo. Perhaps it has something to do with the the internet--we are up to our necks in information, and somehow we believe that translates into knowledge. Love your reply!
There is little knowledge about existence, a bit more of information, a vastness of data and facts, and a universe of baseless affirmations— all serving our ongoing confusion. Thanks for your comments Jonathan!🙏🏻
Thanks! It just feels wiser to admit you don't know, than to try and pretend you do. Honestly, the world would be pretty boring if we all knew everything. Not knowing is more inspirational, I think. It leaves space for so much more...
I think as a child it was accepted that if you 'didnt know' things you were an idiot. My dad told me that too. We were all idiots! It actually feels good not to know...A lack of knowing and understanding, is notbthecsame as being insecure in yourself.
Sometimes I think people feel threatened when we say “I don’t know” because they were so hoping they could put down a problem, it is causing or has caused them pain of some type and our “I don’t know” prolongs that somehow; they want relief. But other times “I don’t know either” or “I too, sometimes don’t understand” is such a relief.
There are many kinds of silences, but I'm thinking about two of them now. One is the silence of humility, knowing the harm of speaking too rashly. In the case of ongoing violence between traumatized groups, this is indeed an ethical silence, a humanitarian pause, even. But what if violence can be stopped by a voice lifted? The second is self-silencing, when one decides that to "say nothing" will protect them from harm. This self-silencing, of course, happens in the face of real (or imagined) threat. I have too often sought refuge in that silence--which is, sometimes, also, a kind of privilege. That to speak is to render oneself vulnerable, to be seen as standing or siding. To, in the expression, "put one's head above the parapet," which is to say, to know that one will face the slings and arrows.
Yes - the privilege of silence, the privilege of not-knowing. Thank you for voicing this. Yes, there are many unknowns, yes, certainty is often a trap, but there is something to be said for speaking up and speaking out, to risk making oneself heard when others risk so much more.
Thank you for this self aware distinction between self-silencing and the silence of humility. I especially appreciate the affirmation that not offering confident opinions on the awful war in Israel and Gaza can be a genuine humanitarian gesture. So many of my friends seem to think it is their role to declaim loudly on a topic about which they are as ignorant as I am.
Such essential questions, Philip. Your comments remind me of Audrey Lorde's essay "The Transformation of Silence into Language an Action." So much to clarify, to discern... intention, and impact... all of it. Thank you for sharing.
Also! Your poem - that brilliant beautiful poem “Remorse for Temperate Speech,” - was so important for me to read, especially at this time. Noticing the language people were using, and my own, it spoke right to me. Thank you for that gift 🙏🏾.
What a brilliant prompt--to say nothing about the unknowable, but to hold it still, deliberately. It reminds me of the rest composers put at the end of the last bar of music. That silence has a sound.
I grew up in a culture that asked us (family) to talk around things, to not be explicit but also to know. Come prepared, ready but don't acknowledge what for. That's how the world feels right now to me - a place of fear, defensiveness, confusion. BE READY! But for what? The presence of absence is an overpowering thing right now and my lizard brain is whispering that it is intentional.
"Come prepared...but don't acknowledge what for." My goodness, Sarah—this spoke to me. My dad has Parkinson's (which we don't discuss, of course) but the other day, he shared the combination to his safe. Showed me the contents—some practical, some sentimental. "Now you know" was the only thing he said aloud.
BE READY! But for what? Wow Wow. Thanks for this Sarah. This seems like a narrative of perpetual hyper vigalence. Sometimes, the fear of pain, the fear of fear, the fear of the unknown is harsher than the pain, fear and the unknown itself! Le sigh....
We tend to be good at distracting ourselves. To sit in in silence and allow space to feel my feelings tends to help when I have the wherewithal to do it. Small, loving actions of self-care like drinking a glass of water, taking the vitamins, walking the dog help when the questions are big and the answers are absent. I tend to default to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s idea of trying to make it so at least one life has breathed easier because of me. That gives me comfort.,
Thank you for this. There are a lot of big questions I haven’t answered about my future but every evening I ask my husband if he wants a cup of tea and he says “yes”. And every morning my three cats get their favorite can of food, one plop of which has valley fever medicine for Thunder. “One life has breathed easier...”
Cheers Padraig and All! Don't know if this makes sense/or is applicable to the overall discussion, but I found a quote in an Anne Enright book I'm reading currently, that touched me to the core. It feels pertinent in my personal life presently, and in what's happening in the world. "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi
I find it hard to even start a list of the things I don’t know, or the questions that I’m sitting with--there are not enough words. I do know that I am frustrated by how quickly I become daunted. This applies to matters of the world with deep histories (Israel/Palestine most obviously at the moment), but also by the state of being a beginner with anything; and thus, my response is often to be paralyzed. I don’t know quite the word for it, as it certainly isn’t apathy. I care deeply, and am haunted by these things. There are many instances of finding a way forward and they usually involve a lot of pain, or a connection with someone who can help, or sometimes both. The framing of fixed and growth mindsets is helpful, and I am working toward the latter. I want to understand the world better and learn all the things that I will otherwise regret not learning. It all makes my mind spin, but it is also late here in Australia where I am currently traveling on business, so I will cut myself a little slack and try again tomorrow. :) Wishing you all a chance at peace today wherever you are.
I've been reading the works of Japanese Zen monk Eihei Dogen. I was inspired to do this by the work of Jane Hirshfield. In Buddhist practice, as explained by Dogen, there is no separation between us, and the continuing belief in eternal separation is what makes the space for wars, environmental destruction, individual manipulation, dominion... on and on and on. This week there was another mass shooting in the US. Not too far away. It hit everyone so hard. We are learning that the shooter had severe mental illness characterized by paranoid delusions. What on earth do I do with this? What do WE do with this?
I went back to Hirshfield and Dogen this morning. I'm trying to embrace non-dualism and non-separation, but oof! I stumble. I don't know how to do it. My response is to keep reading and keep sitting with the "thinking not thinking" mind, and remembering to tell people I love them. I don't think enlightenment will suddenly come to me but the not knowing is difficult. And in fact, Dogen says that once you are practicing, you're already enlightened... Hmmm... Maybe this inquiry is another prompt in a life of living the questions, suspecting that the answers will never be large enough, but living them anyway.
I struggle with this concept also due to a family history of unhealthy enmeshment. I can embrace the concept of not being better than or worse than rather easily but not being separate from is still too scary for me because I all too easily used to dissolve into others needs. I am willing to become willing to learn it? There are things I have to unlearn first, I suspect.
Cool,I have recently been reading dogen also. The book I am reading from was once in my father's library. In the book I found a paper . On the paper my dad had written the name of the last woman he was romantically interested in before he died. There he was, practicing still.
This speaks to me because at the end of my poetic ramblings this morning trying to articulate what isn’t there in war my answer ended up being time. I wrote, What isn’t there in war is the same as what isn’t there in love
Nov 5, 2023·edited Nov 5, 2023Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
I can't speak all the languages my ancestors spoke. Some are not lost, thanks to people like you, Pádraig. Spoken Irish still lives to spite the colonial forces!
But there are other mother tongues that haven't survived the onslaught — like the Algonquian spoken by the Powhatan Confederacy; or the language of the people who lived in the Yankin and New River watersheds of Appalachia who were wiped out before the invading English even knew who they were.
The silences left behind by these Turtle Island languages — these beautiful ways of looking and being in the world — are painful for me to not hear. These ringing silences are loud in my ears. I want to ferret out the stories of how these silences came to be.
I do not know why we don't ground the planes for a week. Cancel work. Cancel vacations. I do not know why we are not implementing a global rationing system. I do not know why we celebrate as if the Earth can withstand our way of life. I do not understand. Why do I think about about a week to pause and recalibrate? I guess I think if we could ration as we did in World War II, we might discover a sane direction for our kinship with Earth. All these things I do not say. Yet I do write about kinship. About humans being one of many species. About rivers as beings who remember everything.🌱
Thank you. I think you’re on the pulse of something we are missing here; a kind of fasting together between the endless celebrations and distractions of our culture somehow. I feel myself pulling away to deny, cleanse, contemplate.
There is something sacred that “echoes in the sound of silence. “ Simon and Garfunkel said I well. Silence offers me space where curiosity forms, where churning rises and settles, where the need to hear and not just listen becomes my quest.
I hold space *a lot* for others. Yesterday, I held space for two people about the Israel-Palestine war. Both of my friends were flummoxed that they were on the "opposite" side of what they normally are, in total, about the war. With one person, I interjected my comments. In another, I simply listened, and agreed. I find compelling arguments hard to argue with.
I have my own opinions about the war, but I find that if we're going to survive this moment in history in one piece, we need to listen more deeply than we usually do.
We need to hold silence - for ourselves, and for others.
Still, when I got home and listened to the BBC, I returned to my own play-by-play commentary, my own opinions and feelings, about the war.
Yet, enriched by doubt and others' views, I had my doubts.
Maybe doubts are the seeds of change, and of complexity.
When I received my PhD my advisor, told me, “now, when somebody ask you a question you can say ‘ I don’t know.’” I could feel comfortable in a place of absence, of emptiness, because sometimes that absence is what is needed. That silence, that pause, is an a diminishing, but a way to move forward.
For the second week in a row, the prompt has tapped into something, unknowingly, that was already going on in my life. This past week my department had a coffee and doughnut get together and we, in true philosopher fashion, pondered “holes”. So bear with me for a minute – what is a hole? Seriously. What is a hole? The place where there is nothing, but is surrounded by some thing. Or is the hole something; is the absence, the nothing, something?
With this prompt I think of a hole as a something, a place of quiet, of listening, of the breath before the exhale and after the inhale.
Please pardon my esoteric ramblings. I went down an odd tangent this morning and it made sense in my head. Haha
Thank god for ramblings!
I agree! I’m a dad and a philosopher--ramblings are in my blood.
Dont we need a good punny dad joke here?
Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl going to the bathroom? The “P” is silent.
YAAAAAS......This just filled a hole in my heart! The hole created by lack of wonderful philosophical DJs!!!! Thanks Jonathan!!! Solid gentle humor about.....DINOSOURS!!!!
I loved it! Thank you for sharing your ramblings!
(math person-love tangents ;)
I listened to my son explaining theoretical quantum physics and understood it from a meditative and esoteric angle but could I repeat it to another?
Thanks for this Jonathan! I wonder, can I use this before defending the dissertation or do I get the honor of say "I dont know" right after I defend :) ?
Yes to holes! I have experienced some of them to be holy spaces.
Bwahaha. You are welcome to use the “I don’t know” reply before defending, but it might not get you very far. Philosophy has been built on less.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the Nothing, or negation, so I am completely with you here Jonathan!
Thanks Pádraig. Glad to hear I’m not the only one. Since this prompt, and my foray into the metaphysics of doughnut holes, I’ve been thinking more and more about how absence and nothingness shows up across all aspects of our lives. Much more to be investigated here.
I don't know can be a very powerful thing to say. I have won people over with "I don't know" simply because I admitted it, though I do always try to find the answer and get back to the person only to find often they don't even care, they have moved on. Great response, Jonathan! And fun, too :-)
Yes! I don’t know about other cultures or other times, but admitting that you don’t know something seems so taboo. Perhaps it has something to do with the the internet--we are up to our necks in information, and somehow we believe that translates into knowledge. Love your reply!
There is little knowledge about existence, a bit more of information, a vastness of data and facts, and a universe of baseless affirmations— all serving our ongoing confusion. Thanks for your comments Jonathan!🙏🏻
Thanks! It just feels wiser to admit you don't know, than to try and pretend you do. Honestly, the world would be pretty boring if we all knew everything. Not knowing is more inspirational, I think. It leaves space for so much more...
I think as a child it was accepted that if you 'didnt know' things you were an idiot. My dad told me that too. We were all idiots! It actually feels good not to know...A lack of knowing and understanding, is notbthecsame as being insecure in yourself.
Sometimes I think people feel threatened when we say “I don’t know” because they were so hoping they could put down a problem, it is causing or has caused them pain of some type and our “I don’t know” prolongs that somehow; they want relief. But other times “I don’t know either” or “I too, sometimes don’t understand” is such a relief.
There are many kinds of silences, but I'm thinking about two of them now. One is the silence of humility, knowing the harm of speaking too rashly. In the case of ongoing violence between traumatized groups, this is indeed an ethical silence, a humanitarian pause, even. But what if violence can be stopped by a voice lifted? The second is self-silencing, when one decides that to "say nothing" will protect them from harm. This self-silencing, of course, happens in the face of real (or imagined) threat. I have too often sought refuge in that silence--which is, sometimes, also, a kind of privilege. That to speak is to render oneself vulnerable, to be seen as standing or siding. To, in the expression, "put one's head above the parapet," which is to say, to know that one will face the slings and arrows.
"know the harm of speaking too rashly...an ethical silence." Thank you for this.
Yes - the privilege of silence, the privilege of not-knowing. Thank you for voicing this. Yes, there are many unknowns, yes, certainty is often a trap, but there is something to be said for speaking up and speaking out, to risk making oneself heard when others risk so much more.
Thank you for this self aware distinction between self-silencing and the silence of humility. I especially appreciate the affirmation that not offering confident opinions on the awful war in Israel and Gaza can be a genuine humanitarian gesture. So many of my friends seem to think it is their role to declaim loudly on a topic about which they are as ignorant as I am.
Thanks for this Philip - yes to these two kinds of silences. And the wisdom to know them. And the courage to act.
Such essential questions, Philip. Your comments remind me of Audrey Lorde's essay "The Transformation of Silence into Language an Action." So much to clarify, to discern... intention, and impact... all of it. Thank you for sharing.
Also! Your poem - that brilliant beautiful poem “Remorse for Temperate Speech,” - was so important for me to read, especially at this time. Noticing the language people were using, and my own, it spoke right to me. Thank you for that gift 🙏🏾.
"to put one's head above the parapet", I'd not heard that before but I do like it, thank you!
What a brilliant prompt--to say nothing about the unknowable, but to hold it still, deliberately. It reminds me of the rest composers put at the end of the last bar of music. That silence has a sound.
"That silence has a sound."🤍
Silence has a sound..could not but help think of John Cage
I grew up in a culture that asked us (family) to talk around things, to not be explicit but also to know. Come prepared, ready but don't acknowledge what for. That's how the world feels right now to me - a place of fear, defensiveness, confusion. BE READY! But for what? The presence of absence is an overpowering thing right now and my lizard brain is whispering that it is intentional.
"Come prepared...but don't acknowledge what for." My goodness, Sarah—this spoke to me. My dad has Parkinson's (which we don't discuss, of course) but the other day, he shared the combination to his safe. Showed me the contents—some practical, some sentimental. "Now you know" was the only thing he said aloud.
Well observed. Brilliantly recorded.
Thank you for helping me understand my mother's way of facing her decline.🤍
I'm sorry about your dad Jenny.
A secret language ❤
"Now you know." What a beautiful gesture (practical, and otherwise) - the combination to his safe. Thank you for sharing, Jenny. <3
Thank you, Mona!❤️
BE READY! But for what? Wow Wow. Thanks for this Sarah. This seems like a narrative of perpetual hyper vigalence. Sometimes, the fear of pain, the fear of fear, the fear of the unknown is harsher than the pain, fear and the unknown itself! Le sigh....
True -
“Not to be explicit but also to know”. That weird pressure to know all the unspoken new rules before they’re made. To anticipate.
And for me, the tendency to imagine the worst....
Deeply appreciated in these fraught times. Perhaps we are living poetry...
“Poetry is always in deep relationship with what it doesn’t say, with what it implies, with what it evokes.”
Thank you.
"Perhaps we are living poetry..."
Thank you. Beautiful connection.
You echo Naomi Shihab Nye...
"You are living in a poem."🌱
http://carriecannady.com/2023/11/05/silence-and-deafening-noise-light-and-shadows/
Inspiration still lives in the midst of great challenge.
We tend to be good at distracting ourselves. To sit in in silence and allow space to feel my feelings tends to help when I have the wherewithal to do it. Small, loving actions of self-care like drinking a glass of water, taking the vitamins, walking the dog help when the questions are big and the answers are absent. I tend to default to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s idea of trying to make it so at least one life has breathed easier because of me. That gives me comfort.,
Thank you for this. There are a lot of big questions I haven’t answered about my future but every evening I ask my husband if he wants a cup of tea and he says “yes”. And every morning my three cats get their favorite can of food, one plop of which has valley fever medicine for Thunder. “One life has breathed easier...”
Cheers Padraig and All! Don't know if this makes sense/or is applicable to the overall discussion, but I found a quote in an Anne Enright book I'm reading currently, that touched me to the core. It feels pertinent in my personal life presently, and in what's happening in the world. "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi
And the next line:
"When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about."
One of my favorite Rumi quotes. Thanks for mentioning it.
Oh, yes ! I so love Rumi for saying that !!!
Oh I love this one!
I find it hard to even start a list of the things I don’t know, or the questions that I’m sitting with--there are not enough words. I do know that I am frustrated by how quickly I become daunted. This applies to matters of the world with deep histories (Israel/Palestine most obviously at the moment), but also by the state of being a beginner with anything; and thus, my response is often to be paralyzed. I don’t know quite the word for it, as it certainly isn’t apathy. I care deeply, and am haunted by these things. There are many instances of finding a way forward and they usually involve a lot of pain, or a connection with someone who can help, or sometimes both. The framing of fixed and growth mindsets is helpful, and I am working toward the latter. I want to understand the world better and learn all the things that I will otherwise regret not learning. It all makes my mind spin, but it is also late here in Australia where I am currently traveling on business, so I will cut myself a little slack and try again tomorrow. :) Wishing you all a chance at peace today wherever you are.
Your Question of the Week:
(...what is it that you do not know?)
And what’s your response to this?
Investigation? Surrender? Artistry? Apathy? Trust? Rage?
Yes.
I've been reading the works of Japanese Zen monk Eihei Dogen. I was inspired to do this by the work of Jane Hirshfield. In Buddhist practice, as explained by Dogen, there is no separation between us, and the continuing belief in eternal separation is what makes the space for wars, environmental destruction, individual manipulation, dominion... on and on and on. This week there was another mass shooting in the US. Not too far away. It hit everyone so hard. We are learning that the shooter had severe mental illness characterized by paranoid delusions. What on earth do I do with this? What do WE do with this?
I went back to Hirshfield and Dogen this morning. I'm trying to embrace non-dualism and non-separation, but oof! I stumble. I don't know how to do it. My response is to keep reading and keep sitting with the "thinking not thinking" mind, and remembering to tell people I love them. I don't think enlightenment will suddenly come to me but the not knowing is difficult. And in fact, Dogen says that once you are practicing, you're already enlightened... Hmmm... Maybe this inquiry is another prompt in a life of living the questions, suspecting that the answers will never be large enough, but living them anyway.
I struggle with this concept also due to a family history of unhealthy enmeshment. I can embrace the concept of not being better than or worse than rather easily but not being separate from is still too scary for me because I all too easily used to dissolve into others needs. I am willing to become willing to learn it? There are things I have to unlearn first, I suspect.
Cool,I have recently been reading dogen also. The book I am reading from was once in my father's library. In the book I found a paper . On the paper my dad had written the name of the last woman he was romantically interested in before he died. There he was, practicing still.
My goodness. What a find!
Only time is trustworthy, that is, until the end of time.
In the midst of moments, hours, days and more of time’s measurements, I do not know why we cannot stop the violence that human beings do.
Being outside among the other living things is a balm, but they have their own terrors too.
I am full of gratitude for my good days. I care about helping others have them too. I don’t always know how to help. Silence is a key though.
This speaks to me because at the end of my poetic ramblings this morning trying to articulate what isn’t there in war my answer ended up being time. I wrote, What isn’t there in war is the same as what isn’t there in love
Time
I can't speak all the languages my ancestors spoke. Some are not lost, thanks to people like you, Pádraig. Spoken Irish still lives to spite the colonial forces!
But there are other mother tongues that haven't survived the onslaught — like the Algonquian spoken by the Powhatan Confederacy; or the language of the people who lived in the Yankin and New River watersheds of Appalachia who were wiped out before the invading English even knew who they were.
The silences left behind by these Turtle Island languages — these beautiful ways of looking and being in the world — are painful for me to not hear. These ringing silences are loud in my ears. I want to ferret out the stories of how these silences came to be.
“The silences left behind by these Turtle Island languages — these beautiful ways of looking and being in the world — are painful for me to not hear.”
I love the image of silence as a sound, or more accurately, as an un-sound.
I do not know why we don't ground the planes for a week. Cancel work. Cancel vacations. I do not know why we are not implementing a global rationing system. I do not know why we celebrate as if the Earth can withstand our way of life. I do not understand. Why do I think about about a week to pause and recalibrate? I guess I think if we could ration as we did in World War II, we might discover a sane direction for our kinship with Earth. All these things I do not say. Yet I do write about kinship. About humans being one of many species. About rivers as beings who remember everything.🌱
Thank you. I think you’re on the pulse of something we are missing here; a kind of fasting together between the endless celebrations and distractions of our culture somehow. I feel myself pulling away to deny, cleanse, contemplate.
In fasting, we find presence.🌱
Thank you for your vision.🤍
Curiosity is my answer to all of my unknowns. It drives my life, literally. I cannot fathom of not being curious about something, anything.
Curiosity is, in so many ways, my salvation. Hope, too often, doesn't work. Curiosity never fails.
There is something sacred that “echoes in the sound of silence. “ Simon and Garfunkel said I well. Silence offers me space where curiosity forms, where churning rises and settles, where the need to hear and not just listen becomes my quest.
Beautiful, Missie!
There are more than two sides to every story.
I hold space *a lot* for others. Yesterday, I held space for two people about the Israel-Palestine war. Both of my friends were flummoxed that they were on the "opposite" side of what they normally are, in total, about the war. With one person, I interjected my comments. In another, I simply listened, and agreed. I find compelling arguments hard to argue with.
I have my own opinions about the war, but I find that if we're going to survive this moment in history in one piece, we need to listen more deeply than we usually do.
We need to hold silence - for ourselves, and for others.
Still, when I got home and listened to the BBC, I returned to my own play-by-play commentary, my own opinions and feelings, about the war.
Yet, enriched by doubt and others' views, I had my doubts.
Maybe doubts are the seeds of change, and of complexity.
Doubts remind me of silence.
Like Joni, I love what you say about doubt being the seeds for change and complexity.
"Maybe doubts are the seeds of change."