Looking in Silence, or Exclaiming Out Loud

If I am walking around a museum, you will probably find me quietly taking in what I am looking at. If I am walking through or looking out on a landscape or wilderness, I will no doubt be doing that in silence. Just taking in what that scene is saying to me, how I am seeing it, how it is moving me. I don’t need in that moment to create an external commentary on what I am looking at. For me the internal experience is that which is important and where the experience of the landscape is taking me. I want to sit in silence and take in the view that I am looking out on. I need to do that - in essence, it is the internal experience that is important to me.

Then there are others, and this is not about right and wrong, who give an out loud commentary on what they are feeling as they look at the museum exhibit, the scene, the building, etc. And they do so, as I experience them, awaiting a response or at least an acknowledgement of their experience. As I say, not a right or wrong, just how they operate as opposed to my silent observation.

The problem with this verbal sharing and expected interaction is that it takes me out of my inner experience. My thoughts - and it is more than just thoughts, it is an experience - are disturbed. I cannot completely relax into my need to just be with.

The experience of this interaction reminds of a quote by the psychologist Laurie Helgoe from her book Introvert Power. She says,

Where extroverts air their thoughts as they come, we keep ideas inside as we work them out. (p. 233)

I am not writing this advocating for the world to bend over to my needs whenever I am in the room. The ways of both are important, and should be respected.

I’m just saying that in staying quiet I am not ignoring your exclamations of joy or repulsion, just taking in my experience. Sometimes my quietly mumbled, ”Mmmm” might seem as though I am not paying attention, but I am and I might be somewhere else in my own experience in that moment. I am just acknowledging that you spoke and will get back to you as soon as I can!