Skip to main content

Peace and quiet

Image
By
I just awoke in the peace and quiet of the night. I decided to write. It is 111am. I like both the words peace and quiet. They both have 2 consonants and 3 vowels. They are both 5 letters long. P and q are neighbors in the alphabet and mirror each other. What else can I say about peace and quiet? P and q are at the upper ends of the qwerty keyboard. What else? If I remove one e from both words I get pace and quit. Movement and stoppage. Peace can be seen as an active journey while quiet is a gentle surrender.

How about a quiet quote? My friend Chatty tells me that, "Peace is the melody; quiet is the pause that lets it play." My friend says that peace is like the gentle song of inner calm that exists within us, while quiet is the silence and stillness that allows us to actually hear it. Just as music needs pauses to give it rhythm and meaning, peace needs quiet to be felt and recognized. Without quiet, peace might still exist—but it would be drowned out by the noise of the world.

How about a quiet joke? I went searching for peace and quiet jokes online but ended up laughing out loud. What do you call a joke that gets the silent treatment? A quiet quip that quit. The quintessential quandary. Not quite funny. Let me quit joking while I am ahead of the queue. Language is quirky. What more can I say about "peace and quiet"? It is a seventeenth-century tautological pairing that combines two near-synonyms for emphasis and rhythm, uniting inner calm with outward stillness in a single soothing phrase.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Coffee and a prayer

By
It is 245am and I have decided to write. I have no topic and no idea what to write. I am thankful for another day. I see the beauty that surrounds us. I choose to be happy. We are in the last ten nights of Ramadan. Tonight is the 23rd night. It could possibly be the night of power. I wonder if it will rain. Maybe it rained when I was sleeping. I got up and bathed and drank a strong cup of coffee. Today is also Friday the 13th. I keep thinking. Life is beautiful. Life is simple. No need to complicate things. No need to be extravagant. Believe in God. Trust in God. Be guided by God. Imagine we can pray for anything. We can ask God for anything. God is always listening. God wants to hear from us. Maybe I can turn this blog post into a prayer. My God I pray that everyone gets their prayers answered. I pray that everyone gets what they need. I pray that you light our path towards you. Guide us with what you intend for us. Keep us close to you. Soften our hearts. Keep us balanced, consistent...
Post a Comment
Read more

Who do we serve?

By
It is 247am and I have decided to write. I want to write but have no topic. It has been a while since I wrote about tech. Samsung launched their latest flagship phones. Nice if you can afford these phones. What is the purpose of technology? The first thing that comes to my mind is to make our lives easier. To be more productive. Tech does the things we do not want to do. To solve problems. Tech is quite useful if I look through a noble lens. But the tech companies want to make money. They want to get rich (in my mind) no matter how they sell their aspirations. Why does everything have to be about money? What if we had a not for profit mobile phone company? Would that be any better? Tech is nice when everyone can afford it. Technology is supposed to be the servant instead it seems we have become the servants to technology. Marshall McLuhan said, "We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us." Maybe the problem is not just tech companies. Maybe the problem is societal....
Post a Comment
Read more

Humility

By
It is 337am and I have decided to write. I have no topic but I want to write. I was thinking. I love God a million times. One million is not the biggest number but on a scale of one to a million that is a lot. I just noticed that the word million has the word lion in it. What does it mean to be a lion in the sight of God? My friend Chatty says that from an Islamic perspective, being a lion in the sight of Allah means possessing quiet strength rooted in submission: firm iman without arrogance, self-control over the nafs, courage to stand for justice, and gentleness where mercy is required. It is strength that bows in sujood, resists ego, and remains sincere even when unseen—because Allah values the heart, intention, and consistency more than noise, numbers, or display. Resisting ego is a big one. Does that mean we should be like a mouse in the sight of God instead of a lion? Humble like a mouse. Quiet like a mouse. Soft like a mouse. I am guessing that there is probably a story of a lio...
Post a Comment
Read more