The Silence Experiment

On Tuesday, my eyes opened at 10:40 a.m. I had been up late the night before. My first obligation of the day was my 1:30 p.m. class in Anderson, so the morning was a leisurely one.

I made some oatmeal and cut up half of a grapefruit. I am a heart disease-prevention poster boy! I took said breakfast over to the computer and clicked on three articles from the NY Times to read. A bizarre postmodern manifestation of "reading the morning paper."

I continued with my breakfast and found last night's "Conan O'Brien" show on Comedy Central. I was laughing out loud. At some point, Matt came downstairs and we exchanged grunts. I respected his having just woke up and didn't make him talk. He went into the bathroom.

Now at this point, I had done a lot of stuff and still not talked. I had e-mailed people, posted to the Board, laughed, but no talking. And I had been thinking about how long I go in the morning sometimes before talking. For instance, on Monday, when I had my radio show at noon, the first words that I said that day were on the radio. Kind of sweet, right?

So, I decided I would try out not talking. Nothing crazy here, no sign saying "Not talking today," and no hand signals. But I would try to casually avoid talking. See, the truth is, I've got things to say. I talk in class, I say hello, and well, I talk. I have had conversations with a friend realizing that it's probably as hard for him to talk in class as it is for me not to talk. So I wanted to give it a try. It was on. No talking.

I grabbed headphones and walked to Anderson. So many humans -- all obstacles. My first veritable test was seeing Evan. He didn't see me yet, but our convergence on the door was unavoidable. He turned, I grunted, I ducked out to grab a Daily and was in the clear. Peace out, Evan.

I sat in the EPDC for my five minute skimming of the Daily. Maybe my headphones would keep me safe. But then Cooter walked up to me and said, "What's up?" Well, at this point it was over. I couldn't avoid a direct question. That would be -- in my own words -- ridiculous. So I told him what was up, which was that this was the first time that I was talking for the day. I was going to see how little I could talk for the day. He -- much like you -- thought this was strange.

Now up to class. There are only seven people in my "Evolution of Human Cognition" class. It's a great class -- very engaging. But the catch is of course that there are only seven people, so not talking is pretty hard. I was doing well for the beginning, but then Dr. Bushnell asked me a direct question. As in, "Zach, what are the stages of development that Piaget describes?" I couldn't believe it -- but I kept it up! I silently just pointed to the student next to me. Carmen, I'm sorry about that. I don't know what came over me. But I managed not to talk, no one thought anything was up (I don't think), and all was cool.

But then we broke up into small groups! Oh no! I was doomed. So I sat determined, with my hat pulled down, for the first few minutes. But then I totally caved. Started suggesting ideas and all that. I was disappointed in myself.

For the rest of class, I thought about how much we take our talking for granted. Every day, we exchange ideas verbally with probably hundreds of people. We go about talking with or without thinking. There's so much information flying everywhere!

A few summers ago, I asked a friend what it was like to be a shy person. He was cool to talk about it -- and I genuinely wanted to know because I just have no idea. And so on Tuesday I tried just a bit to get in the quiet shy dome. Alas, I failed.

So, think about it. Are you a talker in class? Try to sit it through without a comment. Do you sit in the back, full of ideas, but are too shy to raise your hand? Raise it! We can all try to play a different role for a day. Or even an hour. Because you don't have to be crazy to try a little experiment with yourself.