Our culture is geared to help us evade the inner, silent self.

 

"There is a silent self within us whose presence is disturbing precisely because it is so silent: it CAN'T be spoken.  It has to remain silent.  To articulate it, to verbalize it, is to tamper with it, and in some ways to destroy it.  Now let us frankly face the fact that our culture is one which is geared in many ways to help us evade any need to face this inner, silent self.  We live in a state of constant semi-attention to the sound of voices, music, traffic, or the generalized noise of what goes on around us all the time.  This keeps us immersed in a flood of racket and words, a diffuse medium in which our consciousness is half diluted . . ."

Thomas Merton 

Photo: Willow bush on Brainard Lake, with Mt. Audubon and Mt. Toll in the background; Indian Peaks Wilderness, CO; March 8, 2014