Quiet Clarity is a 1-2x/week newsletter for people who want to build a life of presence, depth, and deliberate intention.
The Teaching of Silence
The Buddha once spent a long time in complete silence.
When asked why, he simply said: "There are times when silence teaches what words cannot."
For the last 1-2 months, I've been living alone in my own version of this.
No friend hangouts, no relationship, no physically going to work, nothing.
Apart from the occasional meetup and work meeting, I've been living pretty much in silence.
And this silence has taught me so much. Here's what I learned:
1. The Unplanned Retreat
I didn't plan for this.
I came to NY expecting to be doing so much. Partying on the weekends, building a massive friend group.
But within days of attempting that lifestyle, life had something else in store. I found myself alone, as both my roommates left to travel.
This was my first time living truly alone, away from home.
For a few days, I lived more undisciplined. But as the days went on, I felt more and more drained.
And as I began having structure, life felt peaceful.
Wake up at a certain time, work, move my body.
But this time, the routine felt different as my body naturally aligned to what felt right.
We often chase what we think we want, but our deeper wisdom pulls us toward what we actually need.
2. Things Started Falling Away
I used to listen to music in the morning. That stopped. I would wear tank tops in the gym. That stopped too.
Both made me feel certain emotions. I was incomplete without them. But in the silence, they simply disappeared.
It’s not about those things specifically. It’s about where I was attached.
You can do those things and not be attached.
As time went on, I became more in tune with what felt like peace.
The things that came from longing and incompleteness naturally fell away.
When we stop running from ourselves, the things we used to fill the void naturally fall away.
3. The Present Moment Became Everything
I watched a lot of Alan Watts and random videos about how "everything is shifting for you" and "just wait, your time is coming."
These were videos that promised that something was arriving.
And I had a few projects I was beyond excited for.
But when they were completed, I was like... this is it?
That's when I slowly realized that arrival is just this moment, felt in peace. Not some future breakthrough. Not some accomplishment. Just this.
I wasn't having a realization. I was just so absorbed in the present that I forgot to question if something was coming.
We spend our lives waiting for arrival, but arrival is just being fully here.
4. Facing Our Mortality
As I began to repeat the same days with the ability to do whatever I wanted, I actually began to feel a slight existential dread. Random thoughts about dying and other things.
I found these sparked more when I was more focused on self that day.
Thinking about me vs being in the moment.
But when I let go, I found peace.
The fear turned into a strange kind of love for everything. I would find myself in tears, not out of sadness, but from seeing how fragile and beautiful life really is.
When you truly feel your mortality, the drama dissolves but the beauty intensifies.
5. The Mind Went Quiet
I randomly found myself drawn to sitting in nature more. In the mornings, I just sat outside.
I also stopped checking my phone first thing in the morning. And in that stillness, I felt a quiet peace and noticed my mind also went quiet.
No more tomorrow, weekend, etc. Just being in the moment. And the structure that I had built kept me in it.
This shifted my relationships with my parents and others too.
Felt more like I got to really feel their essence.
Interestingly, the business grew the most too during this time.
A quiet mind leads to less reaction and more understanding.
6. Love Is What We Give, Not What We Seek
I realized that a lot of "love" for me was attachment. I was clinging onto other people's responses.
And this wasn't an intellectual eureka. I just realized this upon feeling what true love was like.
Love is something we give. The moment we expect to receive it, it becomes attachment. Looking back, I saw how many of my relationships were built on this clinging.
Real love flows outward with no return address.
7. The Self Dissolved
What does it mean to lose self?
It means I just naturally aligned with everything. I thought less and less of myself. How I look, what I'm saying, what I'm thinking, etc. Just being present.
Interestingly, this actually brought about everything around me. And there's no actively being in this state. You just drop what you aren't.
The self kind of fell away, and what remained was oneness.
When the self drops, you don't disappear. You expand into everything.
8. True Detachment Is Internal
This was more from reading Krishnamurti, but it clicked.
Monkhood doesn’t have to mean giving up everything.
And being in the world and doing worldly things can still mean you’re free.
For me that was working on my business, writing, lifting, etc.
Doing the work, but not clinging to any of it.
Outwardly working, inwardly detached.
That's why (if you really get what I’m saying) it doesn't matter what you wear or listen to. Those are just outer layers. The inner self, that is true freedom.
You can own everything and be free, or own nothing and be imprisoned.
9. Nobody Knows More Than Anyone Else
The hardest one perhaps is in the state of being, there is no other. There is no "they are less than me, they know less."
For a while I fell into this trap too. Thinking oh, I can feel things I couldn't before, therefore I know more. They said I seemed different, which made me feel like I had special knowledge.
But then I felt it. In complete surrender to the moment, there is no "one knows more" or "one knows less." On the plane of thought there might be separation. But deeper than mind, we are all that same presence.
The moment you think you've figured something out is the moment you've lost it.
10. Life Flows Through Surrender
Surrender is where everything begins.
When I surrendered, the day felt complete in and of itself. And that taught me to live each day as if last.
No more questioning. No more negative feelings. Just a steadier peace. Each day would feel beautifully serene. Like this was it, my last day on earth.
When you stop steering and start flowing, life doesn't fall apart. It falls into place.
What Remains
I'm not enlightened. I'm not the Buddha.
But in this silence, I touched something that's always been there, in all of us.
The peace that comes not from adding something new, but from letting the unnecessary fall away.
The self, the attachments, the constant need for what's next. All of it can drop, even if just for moments.
And in those moments, what remains is love without grasping, presence without identity, peace without conditions.
This silence taught me that we don't need to become something more. We need to let go of what we never were.
The Buddha knew this. And in our own small ways, in our own silences, we can know it too.
Everything you've been searching for has been sitting quietly within you, waiting for you to stop searching.
