Why?

I have an easy silence. I prefer to watch, to hear, to feel, as if there were too much noise around me for me to be able to understand or discern what's happening.

I can watch my neighbour's cats, but they're no more nervous than usual and don't seem to be listening for any evasive threat. No earthquake rumbles, the city is as resonant as it should be, and the world's war has yet to reach North American shores. Everything is straight, peaceful, and in comfortable order.

Nor am I Cassandra, nor do I filter the future through my entrails. It's probably because I can observe the slow step of destiny in other people's skies and the march toward my horizon. My silence is thus transformed into a feverish anticipation, into something intangible.

How do monks remain so calm, sitting in the emptiness of their serenity? How do older people accept the small reserve of days left without sinking? Am I afraid of the end, or is it just an unattached delirium?

Silence is easy for me because I'm amazed by life. I still need to figure out what it's for, and I will probably be without answers in my final moments. This has been going on for centuries and centuries without an amen. What you are, I was, what you will be, I am could be read on an anonymous epitaph from ancient times. Nothing has changed, nothing will change.

My astonishment is my inspiration and my teacher. I observe my actions, find them insignificant and carry on. I listen to my anger; I try to discourage it, but it persists. I see people mean, I'd like to fight them, but I don't. I hope for revenge, and then I don't get it. I hoped for revenge, and then I gave up. Then I experience great, simple joys, accept them, and want more. People smile at me, I smile back, and then I return to the religious labyrinth of my brain.

I stroll, I walk, I record. Trees are beautiful and, ultimately, better philosophers than I am. We've discovered that entire forests talk to each other through their roots. I don't understand why men and women don't have the knowledge they need to live in harmony. Does the Universe listen to itself, or does it only happen in our entangled consciousnesses?

Our consciences, really? We don't know. The Mystery, as I often say, remains unresolved.

And why is that?

Because this question is noisy... burning.