The Need to be Silent: Some Notes on Empathy, Communication, and Writing

When I sit down to write, I feel energized and invigorated again. Fall is here and as the crisp air begins to roll in, I feel myself burn with a passionate fervor, a profound love. I feel empowered to speak form to my formless wyrd. This wasn’t always the case for me. I used to feel doubt in myself. More accurately- I used to feel doubt in my ability to convey myself to others. Sometimes this setback was summoned over the sense of quality of my writing, and sometimes on its qualia. I knew in a profound sense the meaning those words could hold, and the mis-matched symbolic universe from one reader to another. I felt a need to hide my thoughts from the entropy of the world who might see something in it, an unintended infection hidden inside.

Back when I felt this way, on the occasions I would feel that low hum of creeping doubt. The thought that held me back the most first was: that what I say will be read. The second thought that held me back was: that what I say will be ignored. Two contradictory things that stemmed from fear of being heard, the intertwining and independent flipside to the central concept of a fascinating article I recently read, the ‘need to be heard’ section of Lux Lycaonis’s ‘Humility and Grace’.

This hesitation to be heard could be interpreted simply in the eyes of someone writing for those she cares about, and wants to do the best possible work. Or, this could be interpreted as someone who cares about what others think of her, and wants to present the best version of herself.

If you would have asked me though, the answer would have said that really, I care that I speak the language of that with which I wish to communicate. What’s more, I want to know it insightfully, not simply in the aesthetic signal language conveys. See, I am responsible for what extends from me and what that causally effects, and I care to learn what extends and what recedes.

These days, I don’t think that represents exactly what I used to. But I was right about something – language can only be understood through experience, and our language is not for everybody. Likewise, we cannot hope to convey our words without speaking the language of she whom you wish to understand you. This is something I tried to get across in my post, “(In)Comprehension.”

The concept of responsibility is lacking in general across societal factions. Responsibility, or rather, ultimate personal responsibility, is more an intrapersonal act. This is done by thinking further ahead; considering your priorities, morals, capabilities, and goals well into the future, as a logical thought example, to build trust with oneself that they are known to themselves in a realist light. The goal is uniting realist, logical forms with the acausal world.

Think responsibility in hand with power, with knowledge, with Promethean goals. Wherever it may lie, therein one must find equal Promethean responsibility to oneself, for oneself, and for the uplifting of our kollective consciousness. Achieved through insight deep into one’s self, one’s shadow, and one’s ego.

Ultimate personal responsibility is something I take seriously in a profoundly personal way. The language for it often exists only from the self and for the self. It matters to consider what you may enact to the world, through any beat of the cicada’s wing.

Another part of that responsibility is accepting mistakes and knowing when you’re wrong. This part is trickier and trickier by the week. That’s not due to individuals experiencing responsibility. These shifts in empathetic capacity in hand with its strangulation from those who stand opposed to the sovereign, those still playing small games for control. These well-earned problems we face in ourselves to undergo our alchemical transformation. Not always and not usually. 

Societal standards pressure us to stay in the box in which we “belong”. Question that, and risk your life, your work, anybody close to you who may react. The terrible thing is, this standard applies across the board.

What we end up with, amounts to a veritable pantheon of opinion-havers shouting past one another at symbols hurling over the public square.

There is great beauty in entropic noise. Chaos, by its name. This power is our empathy, our kinship in shared comprehension, respect, faith and love. Our pursuit of learning for the pure Sophic love of it.

However, and in hand with all of this, it is only through our empathy, our mutual understanding of transcendent kinship, that there is a spark of life within all, to determine with what to illuminate as they wish. For some, this flame burns wild and fierce, beyond control. Fighting blind by light is no different than fighting blind by dark. The problem remains.

Sometimes, we need to hear one another. We need to celebrate what insights we have gained and honor our own, in our own personal practice. We need to evaluate what drives us. This is not for a consensus, but for the autonomy to grasp autonomy, should we choose. Or, to open an opportunity to practice empathy, holding our flames together in harmony, as we wish to do. Hold in regard the potential for others to be capable of comprehending.

This is going to be a little cringe, but I have to talk about liberty for a moment, and remind us of what liberty was meant to do for us.

America was built on liberty. Liberty to explore ideas. Including extreme ideas. Liberty is a strangled concept, a grotesque and damaged shadow of itself, inverted to egalitarian counterparts. It is our liberty to explore extreme ideas and there’s nothing wrong with that. We are free in our minds and it is precisely because of this exploration that we know the landscape and draw the maps. We know how we feel about certain truths, concepts that may seem “scary”, “extreme”, or “counterculture”. Sure, they are! But through this, we know more about ourselves and how the tides turn than those who prefer to operate exclusively within their “comfort zone.”

In actuality, it takes a great deal of empathy and openness to new ideas to free oneself of that “comfort zone” and contend with that which really matters: Knowing Oneself.

This quote from Plato has been my mantra lately: 

“ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι.”

This is a deviation from my usual posts. It is a bit of a ramble, meant only to convey some thoughts, seeds of an idea forming, tension in the still air before the emergence. Like in Star Trek, or Mean Girls.

It feels pertinent to say this: insight matters a lot, empathy does too, and one key will tell you – it starts within oneself. While it starts within oneself, it changes our relationship to the kollective, to which we owe what we believe we owe, for all that we have gained. And for kinship, tradition, and strengthening one another through our mutual experience of locking eyes with another soul who truly understands, with whom trust is forged from blood. It is the rarest thing, and it is worth everything. 

Looking forward to fall, the seasons remind me what is changing, what is growing, what is forming from this formless wyrd. I look into its heart and hope not to see a mirror, but to see a sincere beating muscle, firmly rooted in its own physis, beating both strong and true to form. 

I look forward to fall mornings with tea and new reading, always hungrily pouring through. Fate, unshakable by techne, has reared her head once more, and the game resumes anew. This game, we require a contemplative, deeply personal, deeply empathetic one. One with brutal and unnerving realism, passion, and unrelenting faith in oneself. This game, we transmute the board and see what we find… Profound and reverent belief in oneself, with a heart to see the transcendence in causality and beyond. And a mind to seize it by the balls.

If you don’t like this format from me, or if you prefer it, please do let me know. It sounds a bit rambling and I am tempted to play with these concepts more, but I’m building the habit of sharing my thoughts, a responsibility to convey myself. Still experimenting. Still learning. Sincerely and with zealous appeal to meaning.

Something hangs on the air, awaiting chance to push forward. Years from now, we will hear them maenads, dancing ecstatic with glory in their hearts.

Be well, reader. Whoever you may be.

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