honorable mention
Paul Christener switzerland
title
In Search of Silence
It is six a.m. Three or four chimes. I tap the snooze button of my wrist-watch. It's quiet again – but sleep is gone, leaving space for early morning thoughts. I lie in my sleeping bag under the roof of a mountain hut. Next to me, I hear my wife breathing. She is still sleeping. Through a small window above my head, I see the first light of the day. The hut was built several hundred years ago with a few simple tools, stones, and wood that people had found nearby. The hut consists of one room, an oven, a table, and chairs. Under the roof is the second floor with access to a ladder.
In the 1950s, Swiss philosopher Max Picard wrote: Nothing has changed the nature of men as much as the loss of silence. Of course, his statement can be debated, but for me, it has a bit of truth. What Picard meant becomes apparent this morning when I listen to the only noise I hear, raindrops falling on the roof. The world is never more silent than when snow or rain falls. Both in the mountains mean one thing: The clouds are not above you; you are in them. We climbed to the top of a mountain yesterday. At one point, the wind started to move the clouds away and cleared the top for a moment; then, fog hid them again. It was a constant exchange between appearing and disappearing. The fog took out the colors and reduced the world around us to black and white and all sorts of tones in between. In such a moment, our life is reduced to what fits in our backpacks, making life as simple as the life of sheep or alpine ibexes.
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entry description
In Search of SilenceIt is six a.m. Three or four chimes. I tap the snooze button of my wrist-watch. It's quiet again – but sleep is gone, leaving space for early morning thoughts. I lie in my sleeping bag under the roof of a mountain hut. Next to me, I hear my wife breathing. She is still sleeping. Through a small window above my head, I see the first light of the day. The hut was built several hundred years ago with a few simple tools, stones, and wood that people had found nearby. The hut consists of one room, an oven, a table, and chairs. Under the roof is the second floor with access to a ladder.
In the 1950s, Swiss philosopher Max Picard wrote: Nothing has changed the nature of men as much as the loss of silence. Of course, his statement can be debated, but for me, it has a bit of truth. What Picard meant becomes apparent this morning when I listen to the only noise I hear, raindrops falling on the roof. The world is never more silent than when snow or rain falls. Both in the mountains mean one thing: The clouds are not above you; you are in them. We climbed to the top of a mountain yesterday. At one point, the wind started to move the clouds away and cleared the top for a moment; then, fog hid them again. It was a constant exchange between appearing and disappearing. The fog took out the colors and reduced the world around us to black and white and all sorts of tones in between. In such a moment, our life is reduced to what fits in our backpacks, making life as simple as the life of sheep or alpine ibexes.
back to gallery