“Searching for the Sound of Silence”

This article appears in full at Her.meneutics:

A recent Thought Catalog article dished out some research about writers. They’re depressed people, awful lovers, overly thinky, and largely unhappy.

As a writer, I should recoil at these words. I should get nervous about statements like:

Writers think a lot and people who think a lot tend to be unhappy. Add to that long periods of isolation and the high levels of narcissism that draws someone to a career like writing, and it seems obvious why they might not be the happiest bunch.

But alas, I know it’s true.

I think a lot and sway unhappy, so this characterization of writers actually comforts me. Finally, some reasoning behind my abhorrence for those spiritual disciplines so many writerly thinkerly types love: the hush-hush of silence and solitary prayer and activities like quiet walks through empty canyons…

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