popular man recommends silence

my housemate/one of my dearest friends/boss has been out of action with bad case of (well, perporated) appendix- after couple days in ICU, he's finally home and starting to resemble a normal man.  expected recovery time is anywhere between two to four weeks. we'll see how it goes.

ive been filling in for his work; some tasks are familiar (ex. recording and editing), some are brand new (ex. live PA work).  it is daunting to get into a new task with your mentor far away. and that everyone questions whether you can manage:

he's not here? who's doing it?

you?!?  (they start to sweat)

but you move chairs! are you sure?

i understand the concern- mainly from two points:

1. that everyone's projects are very important to each individual and they do not want to take any chances.

2. they are used to seeing me moving chairs. so me doing complicated tech work does not compute.

so it makes them nervous. 

perhaps it wouldve been the best to find someone, then school couldve hired them. that couldve calmed the clients, as they would not have pre-context to bring in to the situation.

but i am drawn to challenges. so this wk, i learned to do live PA work in fifteen minutes and ran two shows with no problems.  the second show was for indigo event rental for the writer chuck palahniuk, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Palahniuk, running multiple channels and multiple sources.  yes. the chance of feed-back was imminent.

but event went fine. the tech staff and event staff were happy. i was happy. boss was happy that everything worked without any glitch.

before the event, i was called into the green room, as mr. palahniuk wanted to discuss 'lighting' effect for the talk.  then he and i sat in the green room for a bit. being a generous person (thats the sense i got from his talk), i wondered if he was giving me time, should/if i wanted to express my fan-ness (as event was full of his devote followers).  i do like his works and ive read them. i remember them. i wanted to say something. but i realized that he mustve been surrounded by his nutsy fans for all these days- everyone wanting a piece of him. i did.

then i decided that the best option is to leave him for a bit of silence (before i came, green rm was closed, with his staff congregating by the door- obviously he wanted some space), before he has to be an extrovert on a stage, people hungry to consume his gift, energy and wanting love (from him, as they love him).

'sir, i appreciate your work- especially the way you mix the grotesque and humour. but i am also aware that you are on a talk tour.  i wont take more of your time- i got the cues for lighting change, have a great show. looking forward.'

he looked up and with a smile, said thanks.

the audience were encouraged to ask him questions. one of the questions were: what would your advice be, for a newborn baby?

he thought for a bit. i dont think it was a dramatic pause. it felt genuine.

then he said: 

dont be afraid to offer the baby some silence.

the world is full of things pushing into your life- television, the internet, (we) are now in the attention deficit disorder generation... without silence, things cannot take place. we worry about silence. but if we can be conditioned to be comfortable, and to employ silence as part of our lives, it would be a good thing.

this probably was my favorite thing i heard this week.

walking back after the show, i bowed to self to give myself some silence. silence from media. silence from opinions and freely offered advices. silence from self/others' criticism. silence from the insane jealousy and unhappiness that comes from discourse of life.

im not very good. but may be i can be. when you run a mixer with live sound, and when the speaker feeds the microphone, we get some real nasty noise- feedback.  that screeching insanity that reverberates in people's head.  and being too acutely aware of external inputs into one's life (especially when they are given without personal considerations), and feeding the unhelpful ones to one's psyche, no wonder, a nasty feedback will happen. and it does. it wears me out. makes me sad. angry. frustrated.

but i am going to practice. to give self some silence. 

here's to hope.