silence

in thinking about the gifts of silence I made this interesting discovery. Think of the times and places where silence is important to hearing, understanding and knowing. At a symphony, if there were no silence there could be no distinction between instruments. Meaning would be lost. Think of the emotion or story that is conveyed when you hear the solitary sound of a bell against a backdrop of silence. Even when several instruments play at the same time, our ears manipulate silence to 'pick out' certain sounds by using the silence in our heads to soften the surrounding sounds. In that way silence is malleable and personally useable.