What is silence? Where is it? How do we create it? Why is it important?

These are the kinds of questions that compel Erling Kagge—Norwegian explorer, author, publisher, art collector, and father of three teenage girls.

In his book released this week in English translation, Silence in the Age of Noise, Kagge offers a distilled meditation on topics ranging from poetry and painting, to his solitary adventures as a polar explorer.

Extreme expeditions

At age thirty, Kagge crossed Antarctica to become the first person to walk alone on the South Pole. Before setting out, he had removed the batteries for his emergency radio. Alone, indeed. And silent.

Each time I stopped for a break, if the wind was not blowing, I experienced a deafening silence.

The quieter I became, the more I heard.

I became more and more attentive to the world of which I am a part.

Later, he became the first to reach the “three poles”—North Pole, South Pole, and the summit of Mount Everest.

Silence within

Now Kagge searches for silence at home—in quiet moments before waking . . . in his morning commute . . . in music, from beat drops to Beethoven.

The silence that I am after is the silence within.

In compact impressions, he reflects on how each of us experiences silence uniquely. How it is the “new luxury” that exposes class divisions. How it evokes wonder, and draws us closer to others. Most of all, he says,

Silence is about rediscovering, through pausing, the things that bring us joy.

Your own search

Kagge’s advice?

“You need to find your own South Pole,” he says.

Leave your electronics at home, take off in one direction until there’s nothing around you. Be alone for three days. Don’t talk to anyone. Gradually you will rediscover other sides of yourself.

My own recommendation would be, if you can, to go on a three, five, or eight-day spiritual retreat. Silent, of course. When you become quiet enough to hear the trees speaking to you, you’ve arrived. Or to retreat from the noise in your day for even a brief moment, to sit still and quietly enough to hear yourself breathe.

Kagge, E. (2017) Silence: In the age of noise. Translated from the Norwegian by Becky L. Crook. New York: Pantheon Books.