I hope all of you are doing well. I am sitting in the dark on my desk. My Bluetooth earphones just came in and I'm not the happiest with them because they get entangled in my curly hair. My roommate is sleeping - aka watching something under her comforter with mini explosions of giggles signalling something funny and her lack of being asleep, and my other flatmate is doing something in her own room. But like I said, I am sitting in the dark, for once in my life, on my desk (I study on my sofa, the bed... anywhere except my desk). Music is playing in the background, and I can feel the quiet.
The definition of quiet is making little or no noise, but that isn't what quiet looks or feels like. So I began drawing, trying to figure out what quiet looked like. And I couldn't really wrap my head around it. Because they were either genuinely quiet, or in the middle of a mess or a lot of noise. Take a look:
Quiet can be like that scenery all of us drew as kids. It is comfort, the mountains, trees, and river colliding together. It's a house in the middle of nowhere, sometimes even a well next to it if you're from India.
On the other hand, sometimes it's like the yellow on the bottom left corner. A little ray of sunshine in the middle of a mess, a moment of clarity if you may. For instance, imagine a cyclist in the middle of a busy city, minding their own business. I don't know why or how I can picture quiet in so much of noise. Can you?
And while drawing these sketches, I realised that what they have in common isn't some physical state, but your mental state. It's a tightrope wide enough to give you enough space, yet keep nothing unnecessary on it. I guess I should have replaced this girl on a tightrope with a brain on one.
The mental model of quiet to me is a mix of balance and clarity, focus and peace. Similar to the tightrope, it's where you can shut everything else out except what you want to keep in your head. (That's also probably why silence can be deafening and doesn't imply quietness.)
What comes to your mind when you think of quiet? I'd love to know.
Stay at home, stay safe
Kanksha <3
