Will

by Will Smith

I hate it when people send me Instagram quotes that are supposed to be deep. They always come with a little fancy border, and the background’s always mauve, and in some woke-ass, illegible, calligraphy font—and when they truly wanna get you, they add a picture of a really, really old Asian man. Silence is the root of everything made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I make noise for a living. I was so confused, I texted back, “WTF?????????” My phone rang immediately. It was my boy Antoine. “Man, don’t be sendin’ me your little pseudo-inspirational Buddha-babble,” I said. “If you gon’ send me quotes, send me lyrics from Talib Kweli.” “I just got back from India,” he said, cracking up, knowing he had no business sending me that Rumi bullshit. “That is no excuse,” I said. “What were you doin’ in India?” “I did a thing called ‘Vipassana.’ It’s a ten-day silent retreat—no television, no phone, no talking. It was wild. You have to do it.” “No talking for ten days? What’s it called again?” “Vipassana—it means ‘to see things as they really are.’” Antoine and I hadn’t spoken in over a year, but I guess he just needed somebody to talk to. It’s weird how people can feel when you’re seeking—higher curiosity seems to emit energy at a different frequency. As soon as you truly open to something different, it’s like a cosmic shout into an energetic mega-phone: YO! Where y’all at? You see I’m strugglin’ over here? “Yeah, man, I’m not sure I’m ready for India,” I said. “But I do like th...