Behind a cacophony of traffic noise, iPhone alerts and our ever-spinning thoughts, an elusive notion – silence – lies in wait. But what really is silence? Where can it be found? And why is it more important now than ever? Erling Kagge, the Norwegian adventurer and polymath, once spent fifty days walking solo in Antarctica with a broken radio. In this meditative, charming and surprisingly powerful book, he explores the power of silence and the importance of shutting out the world. Whether you’re in deep wilderness, taking a shower or on the dance floor, you can experience perfect stillness if you know where to look. And from it grows self-knowledge, gratitude, wonder and much more. Take a deep breath, and prepare to submerge yourself in Silence. Your own South Pole is out there, somewhere. Silence: In the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge – eBook Details

Asked at Hay this year how his children feel about his ideas on achieving silence, Kagge replied that his daughter "thinks it's total bullshit". The gorgeous pictures at the beginning of each segment, are breathtaking. If you are an introspective person, as I am, you will find much of value in this wonderful book. Take a deep breath, and prepare to submerge yourself in Silence. Your own South Pole is out there, somewhere. A joyful celebration of what feels like a precious resource that is . . . in too short supply.” —On Air, NPR The philosopher and "boredom theorist" Blaise Pascal wrote of our discomfort with silence that "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." Kagge notes that Pascal wrote this in the 1600s. Which is to say, sometime before the advent of television, social media, and all those other instruments of distraction that exist today. Humanity, in other words, has always had a hard time being quiet.

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I’m old enough to remember being deeply bored during my childhood: in a 70s home, once children’s TV had finished and you’d read all your books, it really was possible to be very, very bored.

The author spent fifty days alone in Antarctica, "On the twenty second day I wrote in my journal: At home I only enjoy 'big bites' Down here I am learning to value miniscule joys. The nuanced hues of the snow. The wind abating. Formations of clouds. Silence." Erling Kagge เขียนวิเคราะห์ถึงความเงียบในบริบทต่างๆ ผ่านสายตาของมุมมองส่วนตัวในฐานะคนเป็นพ่อที่ลูกๆ พลัดหลงอยู่ในโลกโซเชียลตลอดเวลา ผ่านข้อมูลและการทดลองทางวิทยาศาสตร์ ผ่านโลกศิลปะ ดนตรี ศิลปิน และผ่านประสบการณ์การเดินทางครั้งสำคัญของเขา The alternative is to not think anything at all. You may call this meditation, yoga, mindfulness or merely common sense. It can be good. I take pleasure in meditating and practising yoga. I’ve also taken up the cousin to this practice – hypnosis – and hypnotised myself for 20 minutes to disconnect. That also works well. I lie there hovering a couple of centimetres above my bed each afternoon. They are still curious, but their faces are not as childish, more adult, and their heads are now filled with more ambitions than questions. None of them had any interest in discussing the subject of silence, so, to invoke it, I told them about two friends of mine who had decided to climb Mount Everest.

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What Kagge actually means by silence in this book is that feeling of stillness, of being alone with your thoughts, rather than coping with the constant input of ideas and work by others into your skull. It’s so easy to avoid just being alone with our own thoughts when we carry little digital distraction devices with us everywhere. Finding a path into a period of time with just ourselves and the natural environment is something we now have to actively seek, as life no longer provides it to us regularly. Silence through subtraction First of all: yeah, I bet. Fun dinner table convo. Second: Kagge tries to use this story to make a point about the evils of technology, but isn't the actual takeaway here that technology is AMAZING and allowed a DYING MAN TO NAME HIS CHILD ON THE PHONE WITH HIS WIFE FROM MOUNT EVEREST? Dude. There are about 10,000 anecdotes one could use to prove the perils of tech, and you're going with this? I’m about to subtract this book from my life: it was a random borrow from the local library. But there’s enough interesting and intriguing ideas about that quest for calm and stillness in it, that I’m almost certain to return to it at some point. Who should read it?: This is one of those books that I truly believe everyone should give a shot. It's not going to be for everyone, and some still might read it and get nothing out of it. I can't speak highly enough about it.