Being silent

[SteveNomad]

I have always fantasized about living a life of being completely silent - not talking at all. For a year or a while.
Live a normal life, but don't talk. Stay completely silent. I might do transactions with writing things down or pointing to a board. I would carry some sort of siren/noisemaker/s to get help if I really needed it. In the Internet world, this would be more pull off-able than in the earlier world, carry dome wild conversation with devices that with handprinting, though thinking about it, lengthy conversations. You could even order pizza/Chinese/delivery in general!
I think of it as making me more prayerful, too. Maybe that is rather a pose.
Running into other AS people on the Web who are perfectly articulate in writing but are non-verbal helped me along in returning to this idea too.
A part of me imagines me doing it in a neighborhood something li East Village in New York City - as it was about twenty'fivr years ago, I haven't been there for over twenty years.

 

[SteveNomad]

..." Lengthy conversations would have to be done from a distance ", I meant, or similar.

 

[Judge]

It can be a bit awkward at times going silent for extending periods of time. When you go to the store to buy something, and a checkout clerk asks you something and you struggle to get out the words.

When you feel like you need a can of Drano to clear your throat.

 

[menander]

It can be done: Here is one example.

Transcript of "Walk the earth ... my 17-year vow of silence"

 

[Thinx]

I like silence and especially when I m alone. I find it a bit uncomfortable if I am with others. Spooky. But it rarely happens...

 

[SteveNomad]

...You might think that I might use one of those artificial voice machines that people who've lost their larynx or whatever like Stephen Hawking or Roger Ebert in their last years had ' but that would be suggesting I have had an illness I don't have, which would be dishonest - and it would just involve more trouble to make an inferior version of the same thing - your God-given normal voice.
BTW, I recall that Ebert's machine made its prounonciation sound rather , " English " in prononciation, not American, and even a touch, if not feminine-sounding in its register, perhaps in-between. That seems odd. You'd think the maker of such an expensive machine would have standard generic " American " and " British " settings likewise masculine and feminine.

 

[Fino]

Have you heard of those free meditation retreats in which nobody is allowed to talk for the entirety of the retreat. The shortest one I know of is seven days, but they go up to months.

 

[Gracey]

The idea of a silent retreat certainly appeals.

Then it occurred to me, how does one complain, silently?

I could probably make a decent effort at understanding some of the body language from silent others,

but what if I'm not happy about something? or something is wrong? accident? need help?

I'm not sure I have the skills at indicating this, silently.

(admittedly I've haven't tried)

 

[SteveNomad]

Have you heard of those free meditation retreats in which nobody is allowed to talk for the entirety of the retreat. The shortest one I know of is seven days, but they go up to months.

...Realistically, I think my social-economic-lack of security status cut that off for me.
But still, what can you link to/tell me about them?

 

[Ezra]

I am, as you probably know already, primarily nonverbal. I can say enough words when I need something. Or if I need help from someone (but not if I am too stressed out) However conversations are beyond my ability.

However living in a world where people text each other, I get along well with that. I have an AAC device (voice machine) but I rarely use it. Mostly I just gesture in an ersatz sign language way.

 

[Fino]

...Realistically, I think my social-economic-lack of security status cut that off for me.
But still, what can you link to/tell me about them?

Here ya go! Vipassana Meditation

 

[MyLifeAsAnAspie]

I read that the course also requires no eye contact. Wow, this course was made for us, just like the covid-19 stay-at-home thing .

And speaking to the instructor and staff is allowed, just not during the sessions. It sounds interesting to me.

It sounds like a challenging experience. I think I'd do better than average at it but don't know if that would be true of aspies in general. Here is a story by someone who attended the course: My exhausting meditation retreat: 10 days of Vipassana, silence and spiders

 

[SteveNomad]

.
...I'm not sure about the religious and (I presume) denying yourself material pleasures/relaxation/trying self-consiously to " meditate " for many hours part of it. My fantasy of my East Village silent life rather involves being familiar in this little enclave and my silence being understood and not having to make to big a deal of explaining it in transactions in a shop or a restaurant.

 

[SteveNomad]

...Being accepted. To get basic requests across, I thought of carrying something akin to those little kid's toys paper tablets that you write on which creates an impression that immediately disappears when you lift the little paper sheath/curtain that you write or draw upon up ' What are they called?

 

[dragonfire42]

I have selective mutism, which means that sometimes I am literally incapable of speaking. My parents (who I still live with) insist that if I can speak, I have to use that mode of communication, and strongly discourage me from doing things like using gestures. I would love to not have to speak at all. I have a text-to-speech app on my phone, but I haven’t worked up the courage to try using it around my parents (which I am usually), I expect that would be my primary mode of communication, except for the times my brain can’t even come up with words at all. Probably would also carry a small pad of paper and a writing utensil to use when I could form words but the phone is inconvenient (or completely impossible). I’d get kicked out of one of those silent retreat things, though, because some of my stims are vocal and I would probably start doing them at some point, and again, until I used up all my warnings and got booted.

 

[Ezra]

That's one of those irony things I guess. Being mute but having vocal stims or tics.