🌿 A poem a day keeps the blues away…Â
THE SOUND OF SILENCE
—by Paul Simon (1964)
🌻 For copyright reasons, I’ve woven in only a few excerpts below.
For the full lyrics, check Paul Simon’s website 🌻
🪴 “Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again”
I have a lot of things I’d love to write about—but—somehow everything pales in the face of that crazy world we seem to live in right now. I feel I have nothing to say that hasn’t already been said—on this platform, or others—and yet…
🪴 “When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light, that split the night
and touched the sound of silence”
Just like Simon’s neon light—sudden, violent, intrusive—here we are, witnessing the disruption of norms we once thought solid in the so-called “western” world. The irony… the hypocrisy…
I agonise at my own inability to bring about any meaningful change in a world led by leaders who have decided they are above all checks and balances—just because…
A world where leaders behave like kindergarteners—squabbling over “toys” while the “playground” burns…
So, while I’m not sure I have anything new to say… silence seems just as deafening—and damning.
🪴“Fool, said I, you do not know,
silence, like a cancer, grows”
I offer you these lyrics today as a reflection on what it means to be Human;
on what it means to live in a world where rule of law means little;
where international law is treated like toilet paper;
where respect for human life, human dignity, and morality are slogans to be branded only on those we deem worthy.
🪴 “And the people bowed and prayed
to the neon god they’d made”
Already in the 60s, Simon was warning us about living in a world that abandons genuine human connection and morality for the glare of superficiality, technology, and consumerism—the neon gods of the time… Lord only knows how many more neon gods we’ve made and worshipped since then…
🪴 “And in the naked light I saw, ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening”
We live in a cacophonous world.
So much noise, but no music.
So much talk, but no meaning.
A world that makes compasses turn round and round in frenzy for they can no longer find true North;
… forever lost in a world that holds no profound truths—for every man his own;
… blind to the everyday struggles of the ordinary man;
… blind to the brotherhood of man.
🪴 “And the sign flashed its warning (…)
the words of the prophets are written (…)
and whispered in the sounds of silence”
The world is ablaze, and we’re watching it unfold like a TV show.
My heart bleeds for the world we’ve created. One that believes there is good justification for the suffering we’re causing our fellow human beings and our planet Earth—our only human family and home. It also bleeds for I know I’m no innocent bystander…
🦋 Happy Sunday everyone 🦋
With love,
Dina 🫶🏽
PS : all use of em dashes are my own.
Resources:
- This week’s song is obviously The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel
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