Death by Talking

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Everything is born of Silence.

In one form of crisis intervention training for people with emotional and physical disabilities, the staff trainees are given the harrowing example of an out of control client being restrained by well meaning staff. He screams, shouts and threatens them as they physically prevent him from harming himself and others. Suddenly in the midst of his tirade, he drops dead. An investigation reveals that he died from a lack of oxygen. Despite the fact that he never stopped talking, he had died suddenly from no air. He had been letting out air by talking but not taking in oxygen by pausing to inhale. The unsuspecting staff had been pressing too hard against him, thereby unknowingly cutting off his oxygen supply. His ongoing chatter gave them no indication that his breathing was compromised, and he did not know to ask for help.

George Floyd’s death provided us with another heartbreaking example. He did ask for help. Repeatedly. He was able to speak even when he was not being allowed to breathe.

“I can’t breathe,” was and has become a deep call for justice. The right to breathe is a sacred right. It is our link to everything, and it is born of Silence.

Whether you subscribe to the Big Bang Theory or the Creation Theory, existence coming out of nothing can be understood simplistically as; first there was no thing, no sound, the…