Whitespace & Poetry: How silence is an essential practice during increased intensity
Disclaimer: This is not a life hack or a way to get ahead. I will keep you from leveraging mindfulness to be more effective at work. Instead, this is a guide to discovering the benefits of seeking silence.
Silence
We live in a noisy world, work in a noisy industry, and generally create noise. We see silence as passiveness, introversion as uncertainty, and listening as inaction. But what if we’re wrong? What if silence is the balance we all seek?
Silence is not seclusion, isolation, or the act of pushing everything away.
Silence is taking it all in, finding stillness no matter where you are, and closing your mouth so you can open your ears and deeply listen, think, and absorb.
“Silence is not silent at all– it’s teeming with life and joy and ecstasy — but it is quiet of thoughts of the self, it’s quiet of foolishness”– Shabda Kahn
Silence is making peace with noise, not blocking it out, this might seem contrary to mindfulness practices, but I see it complimenting them. I’m not saying you need to stop your morning meditation but rather find opportunities on your walk to work to take the AirPods out, put the phone away, and absorb the world around you.
Whitespace & Poetry
Personal Life
Analyzing your life by measuring whitespace
Whitespace is a metaphor I like to use when thinking of silence, balance, and intention. As a designer, I know the power that is whitespace. In art class, we would have exercises on leveraging negative space (another term for whitespace) to understand your environment and capture realistic drawings. I never thought I would leverage this skill in determining balance in my life.
If your life was a webpage, what would your hierarchy be? If you squinted your eyes and moved away, would you be able to trace the most important parts, or would it be a confusing mess of competing for things?
Like designing a website, your life should clearly show your values, character, and, most importantly, aspects. When you look at the layout of your life, is it at peace or conflict?
Poetry as framework
Poetry is rhythmic. It is as much the words as the absence of words.
Practice deep reading. An example of deep reading is reading and re-reading a piece of poetry — practice deep thinking. Practice deep observation. When at an art gallery or museum, look more profoundly at work, and notice what is and what is not, the balance, conflict, and emotions it evokes.
Susan Sontag wrote a great piece called The Aesthetics of Silence, where she says,
“The efficacious artwork leaves silence in its wake.”
In his book Speaking and Language: Defence of Poetry, Paul Goodman identifies nine distinct forms of silence.
- Dumb silence of sleep and apathy
- Sober silence of solemn animal face
- Fertile silence of awareness where new thoughts emerge
- Silence of alert perception
- Musical silence that accompanies the absorbed activity
- Silence of listening to another speak
- Noisy silence of resentment and self-recrimination
- Baffled silence of astonishment
- The peaceful silence of being in accord with others
Professional life
Silent crits
In Noah Levin’s Figma article Design Critiques at Figma, #4 Silent Critiques which outlines how design teams can embrace silent design feedback. Moving from verbal to written feedback allows all participants equal opportunities to share, eliminates the need for a note-taker, and allows the team to collect more feedback in less time.
Starting meetings in silence
Justin Zorn & Leigh Marz’s book Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise gives two examples of silence in meetings. The first example was when our forefathers were writing the constitution. In the summer of 1787, in Philadelphia, the street was filled with dirt in front of the meeting hall. Dirt was ordered to construct a noise barrier so that street noise wouldn’t disturb them. The second example is a Quaker practice. When a group meeting gets particularly contentious, the “clerk” will call for the group to pause for silent contemplation. “Discerning” their thresholding process allows shared silence and contemplation to let a group focus on what’s important.
Amazon’s use of Tufte’s Study Hall approach using 20%-50% of the meeting in silents participants read prepared materials together. In Joe McCormack’s essay The Quiet Workplace he says, “When the environment is not quiet, we don’t ask questions.” The combination of shared silence and focused activity can unlock a unifying curiosity that is less distracted than in our typical meetings. Silent meetings, similar to silent crits, have three main benefits:
- Equity and inclusion — everyone gets a chance to contribute.
- Time to digest information — with allotted reading time, attendances have ample time to digest information and focus on the topic.
- Improved feedback — with everyone contributing simultaneously, it allows more input and well-thought-out feedback.
David Gasca wrote a great article called The Silent Meeting Manifesto v1: Making meeting suck a little less where he gives a practical guide to successfully silent meeting.
Conclusion
Noise is stress. Neuroscientists and medical professionals alike have proven that high noise levels can harm your body. Silence, on the other hand, “allows the brain to recover.” Yet we’ve had 40 years of mindfulness, and the world is noisier than ever. I hope we can find opportunities to opt-into silence in our daily lives.
Many cultures describe the silence of the mind as “flow,” athletes refer to it as “the zone,” the perfect balance where your mind can silence and your body focus. Practicing silence helps tune in your ability to tap into flow, find your zone and focus actively.
