The philosophy of silence.

Well, here it goes. In less than two hours, I will be officially on my vow of silence. I will not be writing in this blog, nor talking to anyone. I plan to get lots of shit done, over the next month, and can only think of how it will be for me. It feels strange, talking to people for the last time in quite some time. I've been distancing myself from my friends, much to some of their chagrin. One of my friends now has a passive aggressive hateful relationship with me, his jokes have turned insulting and he rarely speaks with me otherwise. However, the only people whose judgment I truly place stock in have all wished me luck, and I think that I am well prepared.

It will be a strange month, to say in the least. Man only reaches his heights when pushed into the darkest depths. Here I am, at the edge of the precipice, and I am looking back, and it is strange to do so. I see all the things that I am giving up, and I am so strangely ready to do it. I look back and realize that all the things I took for granted were not so important, not so useful. I've been holding myself back, all this time, and I never knew it.

Mankind is strange, in that it cannot do anything forever. We cannot eat the same foods for very long, nor do the same activities, without eventually growing bored of them. In this case, it is our goal to move on, to find something else to occupy our time so that when we come back, we will be ready to do the thing that we loved so much for a second time. I suppose that this is why, in the end, we need to die. If we didn't, then sooner or later we would grow bored of everything at once, and the need to cease to exist would grow until we were forced to end it on our own. But that is not the time that I have reached, not yet. I have grown bored with this world, the one currently live in. I have discovered its nuances, and the ways in which it reacts to my prodding and poking. It is time to move on. It is time to transcend reality.

So here I go.

The letter.

Here is the letter which I published yesterday on facebook. As of then, I have received numerous comments, ranging from awe and wonder to vehement denial that this is a good idea for me, both on facebook, and in real life.

For a very long time, I have been planning to take a month long vow of silence. I am somewhat glad to say that I will finally be putting my plan into action. On Monday, the thirteenth of April, I will be beginning the vow, thus ending on the thirteenth of May. While under the vow, I have decided on the following course of action.

-I will not be speaking for any social reason, however, I will allow myself to speak for academic purposes, participating in class, etc. This also allows me to speak for other small, necessary reasons, as long as they are not purely social.

-I will possibly be eating with others, but I will not speak, and I will not engage in any other social activity, such as events or other things after school.

-I will still be checking Facebook, so feel free to write something to me, if it's terribly necessary. I will respond to anything posed on Facebook, but probably in the most curt and basic possible way.

-My style of dress will become more simple, and my hygiene will probably become less tolerable all around. I do not wish to focus on the trappings of sociality when I am attempting to avoid sociality in all forms.

-My sleep might also drastically change. It is quite possible that I will adopt hours of sleep and wakefulness that make no sense. I will be attempting to sleep less, but this is not as important.

This will be very confusing to nearly everybody, I have only told two people about this idea, and it may seem very sudden. You might also be wondering why. I am doing this because I have to. There are parts of myself that become repressed when around other people, and for the time being I need to focus on these parts. There are also things about myself that I simply have to find out.

I hope that this will not be a problem to any of my friends. This decision has nothing to do with any hard feelings for any one of you, and I trust that when I return next month I will be able to turn right back to the friends I know and love.

Feel free to comment on this note or ask questions. I am telling you all one week beforehand so as to have time to adjust and understand.

Also, I only tagged people who will most directly be influenced by this, for the most part, but of course quite a few people should probably know. Do not be offended if you were not tagged.

The coming storm.

As it turns out, I have behaved admirably since my last blog. I have been writing well, I have kept to a workout schedule, I have remained positive, and I have continued to accomplish what I want in my life. New plans are blossoming, which will soon come to fruit.

The first is my adherence to my plan to take a month long vow of silence. I have planned to take it next Monday, a week from today, on the thirteenth. It will then end on the thirteenth of May. During this time, I have concluded, I will attempt to do nothing except that which furthers my plans. I will work out, eat, write, read, do my assigned schoolwork, and sleep. I will attempt to keep play to a minimum. I am not certain how much of this I can do, but without the influence of the outside world, it will be much easier. I am also allowing myself to speak for purely non-social purposes: participation in classes, basic, necessary communication, and the like. I will still permit myself to use Facebook and the like, but I will not actively work to be social on it.

I have to do this. I am uncertain of why I must do something so extreme, but all that I know is that I have to. Tomorrow, I will be creating a letter to the rest of the world, to be placed on Facebook, to alert them to my intentions. I must attempt to be basic, not flashy, not presumptuous. I will try to tell them what it is that I stand for, what I wish to accomplish. I will try to make them see what it is that I mean.

Recently, my girlfriend called me with a panicked tone. She wished to talk to me, right away. I told her to come down, and she relayed to me that a friend of hers had recently scared her, had revealed that she held depressive thoughts, and my girlfriend was afraid that she might consider killing herself. As she shook, I held her in my arms, and had her tell me about it.

There were many great moments in this conversation, because it was deep and meant, and that is where I excel. I put on a great show, but I consider myself far better when concerned with the real than with the fake. The first moment occurred when I attempted to bring myself into the conversation.

Leaning on each others noses, I told her what it was all about. I told her, that the reason I do everything, that the reason that I write, I live, I exist, is to prevent this. As I told it to her, I cried, because I could not do anything else. This was my statement of purpose, I made it clear to her. The only reason I lived, the only reason I existed, was because I wanted to help people. It was perhaps the strongest moment in my life. Crying as well, she looked up, and told me that I would achieve this, that I would do it. That was pure faith, stronger than any religion, stronger than anything on this earth. This is the stuff that moves planets.

Another moment occurred when I related a story of something that had happened earlier that day. My friends had wanted to play a game of Risk, which I had never played. They set up the board, and I studied the rules. At the end of the game, I won, controlling the entire world. However, I could only complete this victory because of a critical decision I had made, in the middle. I had made truces with many of my friends, around the table, especially one with the player who controlled America, and thus was my choice for strongest, in which I would leave him Asia if I pushed down from Europe, my continent, into Africa. At a critical point, one player controlled part of Africa, but was very weak and ready to be defeated. I had a truce with this player, but I broke it, and killed the player in that turn, taking all of Africa in the process. I honored the deal I had made with America, at the cost of the wrath of the other player. In the next turn, I took South America, and Australia. In the turn after that, I won.

I did what I had to do. I had no regrets, although the player I had betrayed was somewhat angered with me. In the end, because of that decision, I won. If I had not made the decision, I would likely have lost, and if I had made the decision but still lost, then I would have had regrets, and apologized. As it is, I did what I had to do.

I relayed this story to my girlfriend, and then told her, that this was me. In the end, I will always do, exactly what I have to do. I will reach my goals, that is all.

I will be the most famous man in the world.

Later today, I will post the letter, and next week I will say farewell. Then, I will be gone for an entire month.

The storm clouds gather, preparing to strike. The lightning is restless.