Today, our greatest fear is Silence. Less for the ears, more for the soul. We bathe in entropy and Silence threatens to pull the plugs of our warm bathtubs. Why is this entropy so comforting? Maybe our neurons have short-circuited because of certain biological incentives; OUR BIOLOGY NEEDN’T TRANSCEND STIMULI. Maybe this is a statistical - physics phenomenon, an emergent phenomenon, the way daylight blue is an emergent phenomenon of light scattering off Earth’s molecular sky; maximizing and deifying entropy might be our collective obedience to Physical Law; OUR LONGING FOR FREE WILL NEEDN’T TRANSCEND THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. Maybe it’s the Human Condition: the entropy comforts us because we are incapable of comforting ourselves; when we try, our minds recede into infinities like the boundaries of our visible Universe; OUR INTERNAL RECURSIONS NEEDN’T TRANSCEND THE BEHEMOTH OF METAPHYSICAL INFINITY. Maybe the perception of Silence is an artifact of Language; it could turn out that what we call Silence is grossly meaningless and ill-posed, perhaps as meaningless as the question “Is Love Orange? “ So it might turn out that it isn’t Silence that we’re afraid of, so much as it’s the proposition of meaninglessness that it (Silence) draws our attention to. After all, is there such a thing as Ontological Silence? One always hears one’s own heart-beat, and feels synaptic firing of some sort; to hear and feel nothing is to be, literally, un-alive. OUR LANGUAGE NEEDN’T TRANSCEND JACK SHIT. Maybe all this is a failure in discerning: How can you tell, with certainty, that a person is simply being quiet, i.e. ruminative, patient, sensitive, even morally generous versus being abyssal, and roaring with internal existential Silence, the kind of Silence with the reputation of being pulse-rate-jackingly but also unknowably scary. OUR INFERENCE NEEDN’T TRANSCEND OUR IGNORANCE. Maybe the factors are economic: Capitalism relies on profit, which relies on commodification, which relies on growth of Stuff and Services, and so it is conceivable that acquiring and contributing to S&S gives us all the purpose and narrative foundation for The Good Life, until we realize, harshly (is this adverb’s sole purpose to qualify realization?), that acquiring and contributing to S&S is boring, unfulfilling, and requires a medication of the soul, which medication comes only in the form of, surprise surprise, more S& Mother-Lovin’ S, the cycle of which is - I don’t need to Euclidesquely prove to you - the terminal ass-kicking of Silence, that great third but deeply incompatible S. OUR ECONOMICS NEEDN’T TRANSCEND OUR ENNUI. Maybe Silence isn’t even the fear in the first place, it is the effect of the aforementioned causes: Biological imprisonment, Physical limitation, Metaphysical loneliness, Symbolic inadequacy, Interpersonal impenetrableness, Economic impermissibleness. Respectively. All of which - it can be argued and proved with sufficient grant money - are inextricably related. Are you with me so far? Did you get all of that? Do you have anything to say? Your eye-lids betray your boredom.
Now get out of my office. And let Susan in.
Today, our greatest fear is the Lack of Freedom...