The Power of Silence
by Fred Roed on 08/10/07 at 10:44 am
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My son is a little livewire. He turns 5 on the 11 of this month, and he has more energy than 10 of me. There’s not a lot that can bring him down, but I’ve noticed one thing that stops him dead in his tracks. Silence.
If he asks you a question, and you don’t answer him, he goes mental. It drives him to distraction. He’ll jump on you until you start talking – or he’ll just collapse in a heap crying. Of course, his little sister has cottoned onto this, so she’s got the jinx on him. As soon as she wants attention, or just to cause a little trouble, she hits him with a tight-lipped silence. It drives the poor little guy nuts, and, most times, dad has to quickly intervene.
Watching this behaviour unfold in my home, I’ve realised that we can all identify with this. Most of us really want to be heard. This is a simple fact, surprisingly emotive and powerful. It struck me that as South Africans, members of a fragile and expanding economy, we face a similar frustration. There are so many issues we want to shout from the hilltops about. Sometimes we get excited and we want to share what we feeling, or other times we just want to moan. Either way, it sucks if nobody’s listening.
So when I read in the news that after the most recent crisis in a series of countless crises that’s been put on the government table, our president chooses to once again ‘remain silent on the issue’ I start to feel a stirring inside of me. It’s a strange feeling – like I want to jump up and down and yell, or break something valuable.
Today, after the latest chapter of the Pikoli* drama, I suddenly felt deeply for my boy and the pain he goes through whenever he gets the silent treatment. It made me realise how crappy it feels when you just don’t feel like you’re being heard.
Just say something, Thabo. Anything. Hell, we’re sitting here watching you, waiting, and it feels like you’re treating us like a bunch of kids.
*Pikoli was the head of the NPA (SA’s crack crime-fighting unit) until a few days ago when he was unceremoniously fired after going after some alledged bad guys in government.
Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.
