Silence and the Struggle with praise

Reflection of the no speaking day 20/10/2010

Probably made it too much fun in being able to communicate without talking this time. Instead of being in a quiet library all day with minimum contact I had class in the afternoon. This involved my regular routine of having lunch at the Caf with the regular lunch pals. Of course there was some well meaning teasing and baiting but this was well parried with the set of notes I had ready to use. I also used the laptop to answer direct questions addressed to me. In using the laptop it probably stretched the known understanding of being silent, but it was a social context and isolation is something I do a little too well. What I am attempting to learn is to not control the conversation but let it go and listen to others more than offering my own thoughts. The goal is to have the habit of listening. In the time spent not talking in a social context I had more people talk to me than I would normally have had. This being Australia and me being a loud and very verbose person the tall poppy had to be cut down a bit. I did reply in gestures and facial expressions as to how I thought about the jibes sent my way but I knew it was all in jest. After class was over I was encouraged by most of the class who know me well that what I had done was a great thing. My mother told me after that this was something she had never done. And still I find such adulation and praise uncomfortable. Constructive criticism and pointing out the flaws in how I go about a certain task I love. I can combat and defend these comments, but there is no defence against praise. There is only acceptance or rejection when appreciation is thrown at you. When you have the bullshit metre set on high and the weapons set to stun all the time you have no response to love and praise. I have no response to praise. I do not accept it easily at all. What am I afraid of? Does this link into the control and the defensive stance I have always ready. The one where I hold the weird geek out as a crash-test dummy who can be slammed, abused without the real me getting hurt. Which is the real Phill? Have I been in this defensive stance for such a long time that there is no real Phill behind the dummy?

The silence has no place for the dummy because it cannot boast and flummox about with its big words and loud voice. There is no place for the dummy in the silence about the house as the noise merely generates the information that the dummy feeds upon to be able to boast what it knows about. In the silence there is no place for it because it cannot boast or find anything to boast about, in the silence there is no dummy only the hurt one holding the strings trying not to get hurt anymore. In the silence there is nothing to hurt you, in the silence there is only you and the eternal moment made by the one who is eternal. The eternal tells you there is no need for the defence that it has always been from before you were to the when that will only always be. In the silent eternal moment you stand as naked as you were born yet there is no pain or shock as birth because the one who is eternal is not angry ashamed or afraid of you. All the eternal one has is love against that there is no shield strong enough, no wall tall enough and no hole deep enough. Accept love and be loved resistance only leads to pain.