On Silence

There is almost no silence left.

Not real silence. Not the kind that stretches long enough for thought to surface on its own.

We have replaced it with a constant feed — voices, notifications, commentary, urgency. Even when nothing demands us, we demand something of ourselves. A scroll. A glance. A distraction.

The inability to sit still has grown quietly, almost imperceptibly, but exponentially. The more connected we become, the less space remains between stimulus and response. There is no pause. And without pause, there is no depth.

We anesthetize discomfort with small, bright sensations that dissolve as quickly as they arrive. Placebos of attention. The result is not stimulation, but dilution.

Silence, on the other hand, is demanding.
It does not entertain.
It reveals.

And revelation is not always comfortable.

For many years, I found silence under sail.

Out there, rational thinking loosens its grip. Wind replaces language. The body listens before the mind interprets. Trim, pressure, balance — they are technical on the surface, instinctual underneath. Sailing requires attention that is wide, soft, receptive.

Later, I found a different silence in surfing.

It was faster, simpler, more visceral. A wetsuit and a board in winter. Trunks and a board in summer. Nothing else.

The silence at the line-up was the true connector. The slow rise and fall of waiting bodies, the horizon breathing in long intervals. My breath would fall into rhythm with the swell. Thought would thin out. Worries dissolved not dramatically, but gradually — wave after wave carrying them outward.

I used to describe it as retuning to a rhythm that is essentially human. Not productive. Not performative. Just present.

For many years, I did not miss sailing. Surfing had taken the main stage. It felt raw, immediate, unfiltered. But the essence was the same: a surrender of excessive rational control. An intelligence that lives in the gut. In muscle memory. In experience accumulated quietly over time.

Sailing adds complexity — sail trim, angles, strategy — but beneath it all, it is still sensing wind. Knowing the boat. Knowing your limits.

Surfing is wind too. Just wind that has traveled.

In recent years, I have drifted back toward sailing. I find my center there again. It demands a longer attention span, a slower recalibration.

Surfing still lives in my sea worldview. But it has changed. Oversaturated. Amplified. Mediated. The near-religious silence of the line-up diluted by spectacle, by instruction, by performance. Surf schools, democratization, wave pools — accessibility has grown, but interiority has not necessarily followed.

The sea has not changed.
Our relationship to it has.

Silence now feels radical.

To sit.
To wait.
To watch without documenting.
To let the mind settle long enough to feel what lies underneath.

That is why I return.

Not to escape noise — but to remember that beneath it, there is still a deeper rhythm available.

And it has been there all along.