Silence is Not a Weakness.

Sometimes, I sit on my bed and close my eyes and think of nothing at all.

Sometimes, I start conversations with strangers with no thought to personal agenda.

Sometimes, I get asked a hard question--an eschatological question, or a women's rights question, or a "what is life?" question, and I smile unapologetically:

"I know the answer; ask me again in 50 years."

Call me overly-analytical, but in this generation, to know nothing--or, to know nothing yet--feels almost like a crime.

The world we live in is not one which condones stillness. Students are urged to turn their minds into complex diagrams of whatever they happen to be passionate about, be it beneficial to their fellow mankind or not. Millennials, regardless of their educational status, are encouraged to have an opinion--any opinion, really, as long as it's the right one, of course--the one that's right for you.

"Rightness" is presented as relative, yet it is not quite so. A truly philosophical mind is lauded and enviable, but not pursued. Or, if it is pursued, it is often flaunted in far from appropriate manners. Our constant need for truth is cancelled out by an unchecked desire for status and commendation.

Is it so terrible not to have an answer? To admit that there are issues within the current world that cannot be solved by a finite mind? A glance at today's news front and student-saturated online podiums would not be so sure.

The irony is this: we exist in a state of constant answering, which as a result creates reflects a state of constant questioning. And under this same ordinance, answers from those who have seen more than two or three decades of the world are eliminated as invalid and detrimental, when in fact the opposite should be true.

It's okay to be uneducated. Silent. Unknown. However, to be eternally resigned to a silent mind, simply for lack of knowledge, is not an applaudable state--nor is a resignation to a life which is content to be void of education. Instead, I believe the attitude should be this: live a life that is alright with the concept of being wrong. Of needing to stop for a moment and learn. Of dedicating slow years to researching one subject simply so you can form one well-rounded sentence about it.

And if there must be resignation, let it be that of resigning oneself to the knowledge that there is One Who's answers far surpass our own--yet Who delights in our questions, our use of our created and complex minds, and reminds us that not everything must be understood to be known.

Silence for a moment is not the weakness; arrogant ignorance for a lifetime is.