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Feb. 12th, 2019 09:12 pmMy mom and I watched A Quiet Place tonight, which I now wholeheartedly regret missing in the theaters because damn, that would have been a fun time.
It was also a somewhat weird viewing experience for me because - you know that thing, where if you have a particular kind of knowledge or expertise, it's easy to become distracted watching movies that focus on that thing? Like, it's hard for doctors and nurses to watch medical shows, etc?
So, when I was fairly young - middle school-ish, probably - I read a fantasy novel that contained an assassin. It had elaborate descriptions of how silently the man moved. I don't know why that seized my imagination so much - I have never wanted to be an assassin - but it absolutely did* and I immediately started trying to teach myself to be, at will, as quiet as possible.
This is relatively easy while sitting still - just a matter of committing to actually being still (which is hard for me, as I am a fidget) and being aware of how one is breathing. I find that I consistently breathe more quietly when I breathe through my mouth. YMMV. Moving is more challenging, especially depending the clothing you're wearing and the surface you're moving across**. Interacting with other objects is the hardest thing. This sort of thing requires a good bit of concentration and effort and, of course, you can't do anything quickly.
Trying to be absolutely silent is therefore not really good for being sneaky, as sneaking requires a certain element of speed. However, I do recommend it as a sort of mindfulness practice, in the same vein as a walking meditation. One is forced to pay close attention to one's body and every way that it's interacting with the world, every thing or surface that it touches. One is compelled to take care.
I find it very calming and...centering, I suppose. If you do it enough, you develop a constant quiet awareness of your body - how your feet fall when you walk, how your breathing sounds at any given moment.
It provides a pleasing sense of full embodiment. There's also something...comforting, maybe, in the knowledge that one is going to inevitably fail at it - there's not actually a way for a living, moving creature to be perfectly silent. Eventually, a dish is going to clink or your foot is going to skid a little too much or you're going to have to swallow - swallowing is so loud! And then you recover as quietly as possible and keep going.
I feel a bit weird and self-conscious talking about this - it feels like an inherently somewhat strange thing to do - but then, it's never actually occurred to me to talk about it before, so maybe there are bunches of us out there deliberately being very very quiet. Who knows?
Anyway. I liked A Quiet Place but I did occasionally want to turn to my mom and make remarks about how I would have gone about being quiet differently.
*I mean, it's almost certainly linked to my social anxiety, right? The same reason my answer to "what super power do you want?" is always "to be able to go dim like a Stephen King character." I have a horror of being noticed a lot of the time.
**I actually started thinking about this because the first scene of the movie involves the characters moving across the interior of a store. While their decision to go barefoot throughout the film is in general a good one, on smooth man-made surfaces such as tile, linoleum, or polished hardwood flooring, one is much better served wearing socks.
It was also a somewhat weird viewing experience for me because - you know that thing, where if you have a particular kind of knowledge or expertise, it's easy to become distracted watching movies that focus on that thing? Like, it's hard for doctors and nurses to watch medical shows, etc?
So, when I was fairly young - middle school-ish, probably - I read a fantasy novel that contained an assassin. It had elaborate descriptions of how silently the man moved. I don't know why that seized my imagination so much - I have never wanted to be an assassin - but it absolutely did* and I immediately started trying to teach myself to be, at will, as quiet as possible.
This is relatively easy while sitting still - just a matter of committing to actually being still (which is hard for me, as I am a fidget) and being aware of how one is breathing. I find that I consistently breathe more quietly when I breathe through my mouth. YMMV. Moving is more challenging, especially depending the clothing you're wearing and the surface you're moving across**. Interacting with other objects is the hardest thing. This sort of thing requires a good bit of concentration and effort and, of course, you can't do anything quickly.
Trying to be absolutely silent is therefore not really good for being sneaky, as sneaking requires a certain element of speed. However, I do recommend it as a sort of mindfulness practice, in the same vein as a walking meditation. One is forced to pay close attention to one's body and every way that it's interacting with the world, every thing or surface that it touches. One is compelled to take care.
I find it very calming and...centering, I suppose. If you do it enough, you develop a constant quiet awareness of your body - how your feet fall when you walk, how your breathing sounds at any given moment.
It provides a pleasing sense of full embodiment. There's also something...comforting, maybe, in the knowledge that one is going to inevitably fail at it - there's not actually a way for a living, moving creature to be perfectly silent. Eventually, a dish is going to clink or your foot is going to skid a little too much or you're going to have to swallow - swallowing is so loud! And then you recover as quietly as possible and keep going.
I feel a bit weird and self-conscious talking about this - it feels like an inherently somewhat strange thing to do - but then, it's never actually occurred to me to talk about it before, so maybe there are bunches of us out there deliberately being very very quiet. Who knows?
Anyway. I liked A Quiet Place but I did occasionally want to turn to my mom and make remarks about how I would have gone about being quiet differently.
*I mean, it's almost certainly linked to my social anxiety, right? The same reason my answer to "what super power do you want?" is always "to be able to go dim like a Stephen King character." I have a horror of being noticed a lot of the time.
**I actually started thinking about this because the first scene of the movie involves the characters moving across the interior of a store. While their decision to go barefoot throughout the film is in general a good one, on smooth man-made surfaces such as tile, linoleum, or polished hardwood flooring, one is much better served wearing socks.
