What was the most important lesson you learned in your life?
Not all silence is golden
Living in silence's absence
Half the fun
of the travel
is the feeling
of lostness,
and while
you look
for your way
around,
you learn
a new
life lesson,
every time.
What I do now
is tell my story
and talk about
silence,
an unwanted gift,
a precious gift
we are bound
to take
home
from our
Bali
holiday.
Mist swirls between lofty peaks
as we walk
through the narrow streets,
dark houses
welcome us
in every twists and turns.
Foliage,
dripping with recent rain,
clings tenaciously to craggy roofs.
Ephemeral waterfalls
tumble
gently
down
manmade
rocky
crevices.
The faint sound
of water
fades
away
as we pass
through
the majestic door
and enter
our hotel room.
We open
the window
and silence
envelope us all.
The whole island
of 4 million people
is silent,
inside their huts
with the light off
and their mouths closed.
The airport shuts
the harbours are empty
everything is quiet
lost in meditation,
fasting
and reflection.
We are confused
stumbling into silence
shocked
all of sudden
what that strange feeling is...
A Balinese woman
in a small window
opposite,
waves at us
gently
with an open invitation
to join
her quest
for a sense
of inner peace.
But my friends
demand
their money back
they feel cheated,
never loosing
their noise
before,
the background grind of traffic,
the loud music in a bar
and endless phone ringing
while news bulletins
from TV
chasing them loudly
down
their hotel corridors
to their noisy cars.
" Remember,
back home,
last year,
in Kimberley,
when we got lost
in a huge northern stretch of WA?"
I try to reason with my friends,
"It is one of the most remote
places on Earth,
that desert silence..."
"I had music in my earphones
and an Ipod in my car,"
says one of my friends,
" Remember those fertile waters,
catching cod, mangrove jack
and barramundi,
drinking and singing
and making all that noise
to scare off large crocodiles."
"Back in Australia,"
other friend shouts at me:
"You supposed to be silent
for two minutes
on Anzac Day
and for a full one minute
on Remembrance Day,
not that really people are,
but could you
actually
be quiet
for a full day?"
We live in a noisy time,
so noisy
in fact
that soon,
by its very rarity,
silence
must
surely
become
extremely
valuable...
It will be time
for our Balinese
neighbours
to charge us
double
for this precious
commodity
and teach us
on the way
lesson
on tranquillity.
Meanwhile,
my Aussie mates,
will practise their will
and their right,
to show the world,
how the loudest shouters
claim
to be part of a silent majority...
Comments
You are really a great writer Beata, thank you for sharing this wonderful hub. Voted up. Beautiful photos too.
- AUTHOR
Thank you, George for your insightful input:) B
Being a communication major in college has taught me that Beata! Along with living half a century in a world where governments semm to topple daily from insurgents who either have the plan down right or are so messed up in what they are saying they lose out quickly! Bombs are no way to speak out as neither is killing innocents who have no say one way or the other! Communication is a gift from God!!! it is ones ability to learn to use that gift that makes progress!
- AUTHOR
Thank you, George:) That was a great 'sum up', dear JSParker, there is no right or wrong, my reflections are open to myriad of interpretations....it is time to talk a lot, it is time to talk a little and it is time when it is the best to say nothing at all...we all struggle to find it out:)
JSParker...
I believe what you are asking is on the correct page! What I believe Betta is saying in that beautiful poem is one needs to speak up when it is necessary and to stay silent if it will do more harm than good. Speaking up can be good when voting unless you vote for the bad side! speaking up can be bad when deciding that a bomb in a busy mall will be the cure-all to all the problems.
This is a complex, thought-provoking hub with an interesting combination of poetry and photography to illuminate spiritual and political issues and perhaps how they interrelate. Did I get that right, in terms of your intention?
Best wishes.
the most important lesson one ever needs to learn is that a lesson needs to be learned on a daily basis. Because without knowledge, we discontinue to grow as an intellect and therefore restrain ourselves from developing a mind that can comprehend the true world that surrounds us!
- AUTHOR
Beautiful answer, Ebonny, thank you for stopping by:)
In answering the question, I would say remembering to be genuinely grateful for the little things as well as the more obvious good things in life. Hopefully this will keep me grounded and not take things for granted.
- AUTHOR
So beautifully said, Bill and so true:) have learned something new today from you:)
Beata, I love your work. Thankyou for it.
My greatest lesson learned is: that life is a mirror. The face you see in the glass, is the one that you put into it.
- AUTHOR
Thanks:)
lovely :)
- AUTHOR
happy to meet a great travel man and even better person:) All the best with your hubbing and happy to hear from you again:)
I've learned to appreciate even the smallest token that I received for the past days.
Having to say thank you for a good act extended to me makes me a better person and a do-gooder, as well. :)
- AUTHOR
So right, Rui...catch it while you can and hold it tightly in your hand, don't let it slip away...:)
The Biggest Lesson:
Time doesnt go back, you better take the opportunities or they will slip away for good.
- AUTHOR
Thank you, my new passionate hub friend from South America for stopping by, if my hub encouraged you to look for solace in your life, I can not ask for more....looking forward to the tango lessons:)
A really beautiful Hub! Voted up and marked everything except funny. No, I don't agree with policemen dispersing peaceful protests by using excess force. I have certainly seen enough of that in my lifetime! And yes, finding silence is a wonderful and important objective. Your writing reminded me yet again of my Qigong excercises, sadly postponed! Must try again to get organized and look for silence in standing meditation! Also, thanks for your fan mail, and for your interest. I am organizing a series of Hubs on the Tango, number two is almost ready. Hope you enjoy!
- AUTHOR
Cheers to you, my fellow hub friend, it is the most important life lesson for us all...to be open minded and not to judge anyone until you can be in their shoes (and you can not as we all know due to circumstances and shoe size matters as well:)
Thanks Peg and all the best with your hubbing:)
Beautiful in words and imagery; a powerful lesson.
Beata, Well I thought it was what you had learned. My answer then was more about how silence or quiet is perceived in society. I notice some personalities like to yell and scream, when "having fun", at the top of their lungs. While others have as much fun but without the fuss. I'm not sure what it is like in Aussie bush? Here in canuck-land it is noise, unabated.
BTW there is a yogic meditation that involves closing the ears to sound, to listen to the sounds inside. You will be surprised at how much noise is going on in there .... ;-]
During my life, I've had many profound lessons. As much as anyone? I guess? The most profound lesson for me. Would be the day I saw north america's great ape. Called the sasquatch. Known in Asia as the yeti and in Florida as the swamp ape. The strangest thing, for me, was that I saw them from my living room at midday.
What I saw that day, blew my mind right out of the water. It was unexpected because I thought they were folklore, a bit like trolls? That was fifteen years ago, or so.
The lesson for me, even though I had always felt open-minded about things. The lesson was not to take things, as assumed. That seeing is believing! That to keep my opinion reserved until knowing, for sure.
From the people I have told this too including my ex-wife; did and do not believe me either. I can't say I blame them. However some did; including Dr. John Bindernagel, a man who can be found through the web. Be that as it may? The incident affected me profoundly and that's what i try to stay focussed on. .... Cheers!
- AUTHOR
Thanks Thelma, happy your visit was worthwhile and come back again:)
Great poem with beautiful photos! Thanks for sharing.
- AUTHOR
"Not too sure whether the hub is about "the most important thing learned in life", my fellow hubber?
The anwer to this question is in my hub, sorry if I was not obvious enough, but I felt I don't need to be...
"Or is it about silence?" You ask me, my fellow hubber, so yes, it is, because I realised, maybe too late in my life, that silence can heal, but silence can also kill:)
"Was that the most important lesson for you Beata?" You ask me, my fellow hubber, the answer is, to learn when to be silent, to heal myself and others and when to break the silence to stop harming of innocent, to stop killing...do you still think it is not worthy enough lesson to learn in someone's life?
Yes, I know, some people don't care, but they are not me and you, do they?
Always happy to discuss:)
Thank you dear 'Docmo' for stopping by, the message of Victoria from Perth stopped on my track as well as my fellow hubber's question if this 'life lesson's question' has been fully answered...so I am ready to write part 2 on 'Silence':)
A wonderful message said with conviction. The lines you sketch are vivid, so much so that the visual and emotional connection is instant to me. I love the cascade of ephemeral waterfalls, silent alleys and rain dripping foliage. The plight of natives versus the tyranny of some invaders is an eternal issue... you've said it so well. Voted up!
Umm, not too sure whether the hub is about "the most important thing learned in life"? Or is it about silence? Was that the most important lesson for you Beata?
It has been said that; the most important things in life, are learned in kindergarden?
I find it astonishing how much moise pollution society tolerates. Apparently it is okay to fire up a leaf blower, that is of such ear-splitting crescendo that hurts my unprotected ear from 2 city blocks away?
I have worked most of my life in an industrial setting, where there are tolerances for noise and it's suppression. Yet it's okay for people to exercise while jogging or walking down the street, in early hours, that you can hear their conversation through double-paned windows. Or the man next door goes out every morning before noise curfew to whack up logs for firewood. Why he cannot do the whole pile one afternoon, is strange to me. Thwack, thwack, the dull boom and vibration of his using the ground for this purpose echoes through my house. Not to count the slammed doors and car alarms that erupt spontaneously at any time of day.
I live in south-east British Columbia Canada and the noise at the top of the mountain from the small town below is magnified. You can hear everything including indistinguishable voices. A person has to go over or around to the next valley to escape it.
My conclusion is? That most people do not give a rat's equus africanus asinus; about the amount of noise around them, or whether they are being offensive.
Maybe, that's my thing learnt? ...... Cheers!
- AUTHOR
thank you for your lovely messages dear fellow hubbers, masmasika and Graham. Dear my Victoria, thank you for adding more information to this sad event...how sad things like this still happen in our times in our place, reading your words the poem of Andrew Sant came to my mind:
'Australia is so wildly ancient,
stable,
volcanoes
now remmants
of explosive life -
provides vast camouflage
and darkness
to sharpen the predatory eye...'
Thanks for this : ) I have spent considerable time down at matagarup with my Nyoongar activist friends and had the trauma of seeing the incident where the police steered his horse into the woman carrying a friends baby while just standing off to one side. She thought she was safe, who would imagine a policeman on horseback would purposefully try to ram you while you are just standing holding a baby in a place you have every right to be? After all they had left the actual campsite area. You have captured the fundamental issues and a beautiful and non-confrontational way. Lovely.
HI Beata Stasak. Your points are well made in a most thoughtful way. Along with your photographs, you give much food for thought.
Graham.
Interesting hub with great pictures that match the mood.
- AUTHOR
Thank you for your lovely comments, my fellow hubber...I have just told two recent stories, that I observed...unfolding...quietly around me and the two lessons, I have learnt:) 'What if it sounds too critical', I thought for a moment and then I realised,
I want to be honest with myself, with my readers and with the people I love the most: 'My fellow Australians':)
Nicely done with great photographer.
The Frog
Beautiful photos. I think i have learned that nothing is free, you must work to obtain whatever is wanted. There are times when silence is golden to me. Very interesting article...
WOW") this is a powerful way to get the point across and I like the way you put it together. Yes it's the times of silence that really make the world around us into the place it truly is. When you can connect with it and see it in all of it's splendor and share that feeling of serenity and tranquillity you my new friend are living the grace of ALL") Very well written thank you for bringing me to pardise of a few minutes today. Voted^bri36
So true. I bet the price of anti-hearing aids goes up (yes, they exist but not called that). I don't think Aussies are the nosiest by far, Americans shreik more, and a drunken Brit soccer crowd...!
Absolute silence is so hard to find anywhere. Turning off the telly is like taking a tranquiliser...but then my two Aussies start squawking...maybe you're right, but they're only little budgies!
Bob Lovely photos....
I am wondering if I should answer the question above. Anyway, I learned how to love hard-to-love people, find peace within, and enjoy life in the process.
Great hub, including pictures!
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