Everybody shush
On the power of the pause, and writing for insight rather than broadcast
Just because you can, does it mean you should?
This question has been looping around my mind a lot lately, with respect to the predominant mood of urgency into which many of us have been co-opted. The digital/social media world/internet age makes us believe (it’s mostly make-believe, making us believe for arguably their interests more than ours) that we must declare, proclaim, assert our opinion with urgency, lest we get left behind or miss an opportunity to be part of the race and the rush.
*A quick aside: readers, you might notice a change in the appearance of this newsletter - formerly known as The Most Important Thing on Ghost, prior to which it was Real and Raw here on Substack. I’ve just returned to Substack because it’s easier to connect and converse, and I value that possibility for mutual exchange. Everything else remains the same and you don’t need to do anything if you’re already signed up – this is just an evolution in my process and intention to engage.
That it’s easier to communicate, express ourselves, and claim creative agency over where our work is published and who (to the degree that we can exert any influence or control) it reaches, is an advantageous thing. But like anything, it comes with its shadow side, and in this case, it’s the ease with which the narrative of hate and despair can spread - hence the importance of being aware of how a lot of platforms facilitate more division than understanding and deciding what part we want to play.
In a recent article in the Guardian newspaper, Josh Cohen, a psychoanalyst, aptly wrote:
“The social media giants foster the grandiose illusion that your smartphone is a global megaphone, blasting out your furious convictions on the social, ethical and geopolitical dilemmas of the moment to a potential audience of millions (even if your actual followers number in the low hundreds). It cultivates a mode of anger that is both impersonal and self-important, a style of sloganising that is grindingly repetitive, each post an echo of the last.”
Cohen talks about the importance of having a way to disperse our emotions, which online is not necessarily the best place for and yet in this “age of moral chaos and loss of meaning”, people end up discharging their emotions without a second thought.
This is where and why I think writing/journaling helps so much, alongside (or instead of, pick your medicine) meditation and other psychospiritual modalities like yoga. They give us space to pause and remind us to think before we speak. They teach us to feel our feelings, make space for them, acknowledge what’s showing up and crucially – apply some discernment, wisdom and skill in doing (or not doing) something outwardly about them.
Mindfulness, in other words: respond from a place of insight rather than react from a place of haste.
Quelling our impulse for reactivity is essentially what the Buddha Dharma is about, and what meditation helps us to understand and unpack our human propensity for. Hence the Zen teaching, variously attributed to Suzuki Shunryu Suzuki and other masters: “Don’t just do something, sit there!”
It’s good advice, by way of interrupting the momentum of intense feeling that rightly, understandably and depending on the context, righteously rises up in us.
Of course, we need to speak up against injustice whether personally or socially endured. Of course, we have a right and a need to tell people what we are going through. Of course, it can help to lessen the sense of isolation and despair when we hear/share from a place of authenticity that galvanises and reconnects us to our common humanity. Again, it’s a question of discerning what is helpful, necessary and kind (attributes that we’re encouraged to consider and cultivate as part of Buddhist practice, specifically Right Speech, where these are described as the three gateways to skilful communication: don’t exaggerate, tell the truth, use peaceful language).
Wait, take your time
This is why I’m such an advocate for contemplative writing (i.e. journaling), the kind we do solely for our own edification, where our notebooks become places that we can be unapologetically and messily ourselves as we figure out the state of our mind by taking the time to sit with/write through whatever is confusing or agitating us.
I advocate that level of authenticity elsewhere in terms of speaking up and not holding ourselves back (especially for folks who have been taught/conditioned to play small), but it all starts with the mind – mind matters most, it’s the most important thing, because it’s where everything starts. And the page is an ally to our mind, a place to see how it works, a place on which to pour and release the things/thoughts/feelings we might otherwise keep inside and which can, if not given space and time, calcify and corrode our mental, emotional and physical health.
It’s the art of deep listening, something that the Zen master, poet, author and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh outlines with inimitable precision and understanding in his book, The Art of Communication:
"Once you can communicate with yourself, you'll be able to communicate with more clarity. The way in is the way out."
In another of Thich Nhat Hanh’s excellent books, Silence, he points out a fundamental truth that I think we can understandably forget when we don’t turn away from the doomscroll stream of updates – which is that reactivity rarely does any good:
“In general, 90 per cent or more of our thoughts are not right thinking; they just take us around and around in circles and lead us nowhere. The more we think like that, the more dispersion and agitation we bring to our mind and body.”
Do it for yourself
Any intention or agenda – other than one of approaching things from a place of curiosity and in the interests of moving towards clarity – only gets in the way. I write professionally, and coach others who do the same, and even there, in fact even more importantly there, I see that the most resonant work emerges when people take the time to reflect on the substance, the motive and the potential consequences/impact of their words.
In an age of misinformation and malicious intent, it’s even more important to do this – to take responsibility for the weight of our words, to release the burden of them in careful rather than careless ways, and for those of who ultimately decide to put them out into the world, to do so in a way that cuts through the cacophony with some sense and perspicacity.
What we say matters. Our words can hurt or heal. And we don’t always have to say everything out loud. A phrase I often use when teaching reflective writing is that it’s better out than in – out being on the page, rather than rattling around inside our minds in a way that spins the wheel of rage and confusion (and then if released without pause for thought, ripples outward into the global storm).
Another core tenet of Buddhism is the teaching about freeing ourselves from all the suffering that comes from believing in our sense of self-importance, and instead, realising that we are part of an interconnected ecosphere in which everything we say and do contributes to a causal chain of help or harm, depending on how we approach it.
It’s an act of rebellion, resistance and a reclamation of the power of words (as much as silence) to not be reactive for reactivity’s sake. The nefarious agendas of those who want us to engage in the rush and the rage are served by us doing so – it’s no wonder that the angriest posts get more airtime and algorithmic attention. It’s always been that way – negativity sells, maybe because it feeds into and off the negativity bias that our brains are hardwired towards.
But we can change our mindsets, we can change our brains, we can choose to do/be different and turn our attention in a different direction. We can resist the pull of the merchants of rage and fear, we can choose not to be reactive, and instead choose to be reflective and responsive.
This is not a call for self-censorship in case I need to spell that out; it’s an invitation to not get sucked up in the drama and the noise, the dejection and the sense of desperation that can derail our sanity when we allow ourselves to get convinced that we have to do/say something immediately.
Yes, say something if you feel called to, say what you mean, and take a moment to consider what you do mean, and make sure you can stand by the truth of what you say (and what you’re responding to) and what it will mean when it gets out.
I’d love to know what came up for you from this post - please share your thoughts in the comments! One of the great things about this space is how we can learn from each other’s questions, curiosities and experiences. I welcome knowing about yours.