That Silence Saved Your Soul

On the boat in Phi Phi Island, I thought I was going crazy. How did I get here?

For days I couldn’t sleep—actually, even last night I barely slept. I heard my heart pounding in my ears, an endless, bothersome sensation that made me want to cry. I placed my hand on my chest and tried to close my eyes. Oh, how blessed we are when we fall into the flow of perfect rhythm—but is it really perfect? Is it truly sure?

Think about what it is that triggers your worry. I’m not saying anxiety is good, but doubt is essential to survival. Without doubt, there’s no awakening.

I felt like I had hit rock bottom. I had lost my drive to create, to write. This isn’t some plea for sympathy—I'm fully aware of where I stand. It’s just my way of trying to understand what the hell happened. The boat moved fast, and I closed my eyes. Around me were a group of Australian guys, a German, and some girls chatting nonstop, all taking photos in their swimsuits—probably for Instagram. But I digress. What I couldn’t ignore was the crashing sound of the engine against the water, layered with voices—people talking and talking and talking. Why is silence so underrated?

No one wants to hear silence. Why would they? In its truest form, silence is the perfect antidote to excitement. Buddha sat under a tree, Muhammad found solitude in a cave, and Jesus withdrew to a mountain. Silence is not a void—it’s a necessity in a noisy world. Are we living through a financial collapse? World War III? Have we completely lost touch with one another?

I opened my eyes for a few seconds, and the sense of oppression around me moved slowly through my awareness until I closed them again. I kept thinking about how stress had wrecked me. Why would I ever choose a noisy city over the stillness of nature? Why would I voluntarily give up silence?

To be in the chaos when I could cleanse my soul in quiet? I thought about how much I needed to write, to run, to simply exist. But I felt hopeless, like I no longer had the faith to believe in anything. I felt like I was being pulled out of myself, but I didn’t know what scared me. Everything? Nothing?

When we returned to the harbor, I felt different. Changed. I wasn’t completely myself—I was tired, still weighed down—but there was a calmness that hadn’t been there before. The anxiety had dissolved, like sweat rising through my skin to cool me down and let me breathe.

I was regulating again, adjusting my internal temperature, and for the first time in a long while, I felt alive—grounded. Not excited, but quietly grateful that I existed in a universe full of contradictions and complications. I had needed silence, and I found it… or maybe I didn’t. I still wasn’t sure.

The next day, my cousin showed me a secret spot—a cliff overlooking Paradise Beach. The water below sparkled in the sunlight, and I sat there for just an hour, but it felt like time had stopped.

I want to be a better writer, a better runner, a better father, a better husband—but what does that even mean? If this place, this moment, is my Paradise Beach, my personal cliff, then what more do I really need? Should I respond to the beauty of the moment by diving off that cliff? No. I decided to return, to continue. No fear. No horror. There’s a metaphor here somewhere: the farther you drift from yourself, the more you begin to realize that paradise isn’t elsewhere—it’s within you.

Yes, you might feel hated. Yes, you might be misunderstood. But you have to accept that the noise you think you want will never bring you peace. It’s okay to make mistakes and to feel utterly exhausted. Just be. Paradise is not lost—it’s here. You don’t have to be crushed by cliffs or dangle over some dramatic edge to understand its presence. Everything is in motion in this ever-drafting universe—and so are you. Sometimes you're taken to places, and other times, you take yourself there.

We all want to live forever. But anxiety, fear of loss, death, and goodbyes are all part of the deal. Before we go anywhere, we need to do one thing: meditate on the worst-case scenario. The beginning is already behind us—it happened. The end is inevitable, too. Walk forward with immense stillness. Your goals will shift, your shape may change, but you’ll still be you. Try to stay healthy. Work. Laugh. Live. Just remember—everything begins, and everything ends.

And when you do face the end, I hope you carry no regrets. I hope you know you created your own inner paradise. That you stood strong and silent while the rest of the world stayed noisy. That you survived.

That silence saved your soul.