There is no natural law that states we must talk endlessly, for the sake of nothing else but talk itself. Perhaps the strongest and most ingrained of our habits, unnecessary and excessive talking has become an accepted behaviour by our modern culture. Those with a tinge of soul remaining within them have to intermittently escape from the conditions of city-life to visit the frontiers of nature, where this custom plays no part whatsoever. There they can experience with total certainty that talking runs amok in ordinary conditions, and to such degrees that it distracts us from much of what makes life a worthwhile experience in the first place. A man must without fail struggle with this inner need to ‘yap like a donkey’ and move towards an inner state which restrains this urge and replaces it with a quiet and simple acknowledgment of being alive.

Underlying our personalities is a tender and warmhearted being that wants nothing else but to be loved and accepted for what it is. Should special circumstances dawn upon us that provides this type of safe milieu, we may all in fact be able to gradually drop this false need to fill the space of silence with meaningless sentences and use this tremendous tool to express only our innermost sincerities. The useful element in the gift of speech will then be emphasized, maximized, and brought to the fore as only a means to an ends. Whether such circumstances will ever arrive, there is much, much doubt, for like a mechanical clock with innumerable interconnected gears, talking plays a critical role in keeping our current society in motion. It is therefore, like many other things, only in the power of the single individual to devote themselves to dismantling this habit to whatever degree is possible for them.

There are many practices and regimes available to help us in this regard. A quick search on Google will reveal retreat centers, methods of approach provided for by both ancient and contemporary teachers, and various other tools which encourage the gradual lessening of harmful psychological tendencies. Meditation and modes of concentration must play a factor as a daily practicum for an individual to be able to keep their head above water. The world of work and economic warfare require talking to play a maximum role, and a single man hoping to make ends meat and survive in this modern world must submit. So it is by no means an easy task, but certainly one that can be undertaken with some level of success if our measuring stick be lowered to realistic expectations.

The question is, what is more important: pretending to fit in or being authentic? Talking is a fundamental function of the human being, but it must be strangled back into place so that it is does not endanger the health of the rest of the man. One sleeps at night, rests in order to sow and reap the energies which will be available for our use the following day. Whatever reserves are in place from the moment that we rise from our beds must be used economically. To waste these precious energies on unnecessary conversations about trivial and trite topics, would in any sane world be considered absolutely insane. Yet it is by some unnatural law that we find our media teaching every new generation that each breath ought to be exhausted by thoughts churned into endless booms of the larynx and flops of the tongue.