The sacred is a phenomenon of silence. It makes us prick up our ears. […] Hypercommunication, the noise of communication, desecrates the world, profanes it. No one is listening. […] Silence sharpens our attention to the higher order.
via: Vasco Brondi, Una cosa spirituale (Einaudi, 2025) — Urlare senza suono
Info & reflection: the sacred isn't content but a condition: silence as the precondition for listening.
Related in anthology
- Una cosa spirituale. Non fare niente, altre forme d'arte — Brondi quotes Han in Urlare senza suono, where he defends his long silences between one record and the next against the noise of communication
- Nothing, however, will help you so much as keeping still—talking very little with others, and as much as may be with yourself. — parallel structure: silence as the condition for listening to the higher order (Han) and for talking with yourself (Seneca); from different traditions, the same diagnosis against noise