How does one achieve silence in the everyday? While Kagge practices meditation, yoga, and going off into nature whenever possible, he also speaks about achieving "silence" while walking Oslo's busy streets or crawling through Manhattan's sewer system. I suppose this is some zen state that an experienced meditator can simply drop into. Or, to say it in a way that makes it sound slightly more achievable, simply comes from being particularly practiced in "tuning out the noise". Behind a cacophony of traffic noise, iPhone alerts and our ever-spinning thoughts, an elusive notion - silence - lies in wait. But what really is silence? Where can it be found? And why is it more important now than ever? In 1993, Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge spent fifty days walking solo across Antarctica, becoming the first person to reach the South Pole alone, accompanied only by a radio whose batteries he had removed before setting out. In this book. an astonishing and transformative meditation, Kagge explores the silence around us, the silence within us, and the silence we must create. By recounting his own experiences and discussing the observations of poets, artists, and explorers, Kagge shows us why silence is essential to sanity and happiness--and how it can open doors to wonder and gratitude.

Which paths lead to silence? Certainly trips into the wild. 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.” Kendimi saf bir sessizlikle dinlediğim zamanı hatırlamıyorum. Ama bu kitabın kendimi iyi hissettirdiğini biliyorum. Kısa cümlelerin, Kagge’nin içe dokunan örneklerinin bana iyi geldiğini..A joyful celebration” (NPR) that shows us why silence is essential to our sanity and happiness—and how it can open doors to wonder and gratitude—from a renowned explorer and acclaimed author. The author spent fifty days alone in Antarctica, "On the twenty second day I wrote in my journal: At home I only enjoy 'big bites' Down here I am learning to value miniscule joys. The nuanced hues of the snow. The wind abating. Formations of clouds. Silence." Kagge . . . writes in a chatty, accessible style and with a healthy dose of humor. . . . Silence . . . offers thoughtful meditations.” — The Minneapolis Star Tribune

That same evening, I went to a pub with a few of them. Inside the draughty entrance, each of us with a pint of beer, it was all more or less exactly the same as my student days. Kind, curious people, a humming atmosphere, interesting conversations. By ethics, Wittgenstein means the very meaning of life. Not even science is able to find words for something like that. ‘Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of the life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science.’ It must be shown, thought and felt.” Erling Kagge is a philosophical adventurer - or perhaps an adventurous philosopher' - New York TimesKagge is an explorer and entrepreneur whose worldview is close to 180 degrees away from my own. He seems earnest, but entirely humorless and enraptured by rich people problems. He also, in my mind, has never met an anecdote from which he can't draw the wrong conclusion. From the Norwegian explorer, a stunning meditation on the power of silence and how to shut out the world I prepared myself well but was, as I often am, nervous beforehand. What if scattered thoughts about silence belonged only in the realm of Sunday dinners, and not in student forums? It was not that I expected to be booed for the 18 minutes of my lecture, but I wanted the students to be interested in the subject I held so close to my heart. Erling ยกตัวอย่างการทดลองหนึ่งที่เปิดให้ผู้ร่วมทดสอบเลือกระหว่างการนั่งอยู่ในห้องปิดเฉยๆ โดยไม่มีเสียงเพลงและไม่ทำอะไร กับยอมถูกช็อกไฟฟ้า (หลังผ่านประสบการณ์นั่งในห้องเงียบมาแล้วครั้งหนึ่ง) ผู้ร่วมทดสอบเกือบครึ่งกดปุ่มช็อกไฟฟ้าตัวเองเพื่อบรรเทาความรู้สึกเงียบเชียบนั้นลง

Erling Kagge, the Norwegian adventurer and polymath, once spent fifty days walking solo in Antarctica with a broken radio. In this meditative, charming and surprisingly powerful book, he explores the power of silence and the importance of shutting out the world. Whether you're in deep wilderness, taking a shower or on the dance floor, you can experience perfect stillness if you know where to look. And from it grows self-knowledge, gratitude, wonder and much more. It is easy to assume that the essence of technology is technology itself, but that is wrong. The essence is you and me. It’s about how we are altered by the technology we employ, what we hope to learn, our relationship with nature, those we love, the time we spend, the energy that is consumed and how much freedome we relinquish to technology.This isn't a very long book and is more of a series of vignettes by the author on silence. There are 33 sections, with each like a separate essay. If you are someone who already values the essentials of silence, this will probably not add anything that you don't already know. However, they were quite meditative and reflective and I enjoyed the additional perspective on why we need to pursue silence in this age of constant noise and information. The pictures of artwork reflecting "silence" add to the meditations on silence by the author. When you’ve invested a lot of time in being accessible and keeping up with what’s happening, it’s easy to conclude that it all has a certain value, even if what you have done might not be important. This is called rationalization. The New York Review of Books labeled the battle between producers of apps “the new opium wars,” and the paper claims that “marketers have adopted addiction as an explicit commercial strategy.” The only difference is that the pushers aren’t peddling a product that can be smoked in a pipe, but rather is ingested via sugar-coated apps. This is a book about stillness, about quiet, about finding an escape from the endless babble of noise and chaos that is our digital life. And in that moment, find the ability to look inwards again, rather than ever outwards. The lost stillness of life Livet er langt, hvis du ved, hvordan du skal bruge det Men livet er meget kort og hektisk for dem, som glemmer fortiden, forsømmer nutiden og frygter fremtiden. Først for sent indser staklerne, at de hele tiden var hektisk optaget af at gøre ingenting.”