Silence

Silence...when in your life can you recall not hearing anything including your own thoughts? This is a rarity that happens only a select few times in life. Monks meditate and try to surround themselves with it to reach enlightenment, a higher level of consciousness. Trying to clear the mind and thus purging the body of unnecessary thought, suffering, stress, etc is not the easiest task in the world. Yesterday was one of those days for me. I went through bouts of highs and lows searching for what sounds like something so simple...silence. Unfortunately it was not to be found. A nearly impossible task made even more impossible due to my surroundings. I always find myself reflecting, over analyzing, and just thinking far too much. Turning off my mind is like trying to stop the rotation of the earth.
However, occasionally I find that my constant thinking leads me to some epiphany or clever idea and the story that I had most recently started became more clear to me. I saw actions and conversations play out in my mind like a movie, clearly and very distinct. It is those moments of inspiration that I wish came oh so more often than they do. It gives me some sort of hope that perhaps this time around I will finish what I've started writing. Only time will tell of course if this will actually happen, but to see the clarity of the idea unfold in a matter of minutes when I was just so recently stumped is amazing. In my opinion it is in those moments that the characters really come to life, instead of planning every single thing they think and do they plan it for you it seems. They start to take on a life of their own and go from a thought to something so much more. It also didn't hurt that someone told me yesterday that I was a writer. This person's opinion matters as not only is he an avid reader, but also studied English Lit. I can claim to be a writer all day long, but it seems that there is no validity behind that statement until it comes from other people.
So even though on my quest to find silence, at least momentarily, and finding none I found something else. Something much more precious and rare, the ability to meet the characters that were once only words on paper struggling to find their place in the story. To have the story told to me instead is far greater. Inspiration definitely trumps the silence.