Something that came up in a meeting, when no one had a topic.  What are the virtues of remaining silent?

For starters, there’s the famous “restraint of pen and tongue.” Calvin Coolidge said “I never got in trouble for something I didn’t say.” (Although this isn’t strictly true. If your wife asks “do these pants make my ass look fat?” you will be in deep yogurt unless say “no.” Silence would be bad. But I digress…)

There’s the association between silence and meditation, or prayer, as some people like to call it. Only by slowing down and being still do we have a chance to pick up on what’s really going on in the world. It’s a chance to stop the endless brain-chatter and let the important things float to the surface.

There is also the whole matter of listening. (Fran Lebowitz said “The opposite of talking isn’t listening; it’s waiting for your turn to talk.) One of the points of meetings is that the collective experience, strength, and hope of the group is most likely (sarcasm) greater than my own.

Finally (for me, for now anyway), if I’m silent in a meeting and the chair calls on me and I yammer something inane, well, it’s not like I volunteered. Whereas if I volunteer and yammer, well, you get the idea.