Silence

Silence is a funny thing. It's usually a bad thing.

Among two people on their first date, silence would be very bad, since this indicates that the two people don't have enough in common to keep a convo going. I personally never found silence bad in convos. Some times I don't even notice silence, since my mind seems to automatically trail off, the instance someone stops talking- sometimes while the person is still talking. This silence is awkward for most people.

Another type of silence is in court. For example in the USA, one can pleed the 5th, which essencially means "I'm not saying anything". This means that they know something but won't say anything. They are hiding information.

Silence can also mean consent. For a litterary example, in the play "A Man for All Seasons" Sir Thomas Moore remains silent, and insist that silence means constent. For a day-to-day kind of example, if you asked Sally if Alice likes Jon, and Sally says she can't say anything, this probably mean that Alice does like Jon.

Going back to Sir Thomas Moore, he had trouble, because the courts said that silence implies guilt. If you saw a man rob a house and said nothing, then you are just as guilty as the robber, because you said nothing, if Moore agreed with the King, why wouldn't he just say so, they argued.

Also, not being silent in places you should be silent can be just as bad. Imagine your self in a church, or a library. Here, silence would not be awkward at all.

However, silence is hard to keep most of the time, like when you don't want to wake people in the night... or not talk when you've been jinxed ( or you owe them a coke).

It's esspecially hard to keep silent when someone intrusts you with gossip, and warns you "not to tell any one". In fact, in saying that one would most probably tell at least three ppl, and tell them not to tell any one.

The most interesting silence is the one that makes one supirior, even if others don't know it. Like companies that have a "secret sauce", one can have info that might benifit many if you only told them. But in keeping silent, this secret keeps one ahead of the pack.

Of course there is the worst silence, you know, the one imposed on people. The silence that can grow into entire societies, usually from oppressive governments. But I prefer to not talk about that kind of silence. I would rather silence my mind and pretend it doens't exist.