i was in dalyan for the last 3 days. it’s a small city in muğla, turkey. usually, tourists love this place. but right now it is off-season, so there were almost no people around.
so i was able to just sit by the river and watch the tombs of the kings (kaunos) in peace for hours.
normally, when i sit alone like this, the first thing i do is put my headphones on. i actually reached for my phone to play some music. but then i stopped.
i realized the silence.
as i said, dalyan is a popular place. in the summer, finding this kind of silence is impossible. there are boats, big crowds, people shouting, loud restaurants.
don’t get me wrong, listening to music is a great thing. and in the summer, listening to the crowd and the chaos of the city is also something special. but having absolute silence there was so rare. it felt like a blessing.
so i thought to myself, i can listen to music anytime. but right now, i can listen to the silence of dalyan.
and right at that moment, i remembered john cage’s 4’33”.
playing nothing
if you haven’t heard of 4’33”, it’s a famous “music” composed by john cage in 1952. it is exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds.
but here is what makes it special: the orchestra doesn’t play anything at all. they just sit there for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, and that’s it.
the “music” is not actually silence. it is the natural sounds inside the room. it is the breathing of the crowd, the wind outside, someone coughing, the shuffling of feet. for those 4 minutes and 33 seconds, every small noise becomes the “music”. cage wanted to show that any sound can be “music” if you just stop and listen.
i knew about this “music” for years. but honestly, it always felt like a simple art joke to me. but sitting there across from the ancient tombs, hearing only sounds of nature, i finally understood it. sitting by the river without my headphones, that was the exact moment i understood why it matters.
when was your last time?
think about it. we are always listening to something. we listen to podcasts on the bus. we listen to music while walking. we watch youtube videos while eating. some of us even sleep with music. we constantly try to fill the empty space with something.
but when was the last time you took off your headphones and just listened to the silence?
i don’t mean just being in a quiet room while working or reading. i mean actually focusing on the silence. sitting down, doing nothing else, and listening to the silence as if it is a “music” you love. paying attention to the wind, the cars, your own breathing, the birds, everything.
try it sometime. just take 4 minutes and 33 seconds for yourself. see what you hear.