“If I were a doctor and someone asked me what I would prescribe, I would answer: silence.” - Søren Kierkegaard
The phone buzzed. I saw the name, the message preview, and then I didn’t touch it. Not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t want to reduce that moment to an automatic reply. The screen dimmed back to black, and the world kept going.
Sometimes I circle back hours later, sometimes the following week. To me, it feels natural, even kind. I’d rather respond when I can be present than throw out a half-awake string of words. But I’ve noticed how much weight people attach to those minutes, those little dots that appear and disappear. As if silence isn’t just silence but a statement.
“Reachable” has turned into “obligated.” A message sent becomes a claim on your time, a demand stamped with urgency even when nothing urgent is happening. The phone in your pocket doesn’t just buzz; it deputizes the sender with the unspoken authority to expect you now.
Being able to reach someone isn’t the same as deserving their attention. That part seems lost. Real attention, the kind that isn’t distracted, that isn’t resentful, that actually listens, is rare. It’s not automatic. It’s a privilege, not a birthright.
And maybe that’s why I leave the phone dim sometimes. Not as a rejection, but as a reminder: access is easy, presence is not.
There’s an odd equation people make: if I can reach you, I should. And if I did, then you should answer. It’s baked into our culture so deeply that silence feels like a glitch, or worse, an insult.
But being reachable isn’t the same as being available. We confuse the two because the phones in our hands collapse the distance between us. A call used to mean standing by the phone, or waiting until someone was home. Now a buzz in your pocket means instant access. The bar for intrusion has never been lower.
The math doesn’t add up. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Just because I heard it doesn’t mean I owe you a response. Attention is not the same as reception. One is a signal; the other is a gift.
And a gift is never owed.
That’s the part we forget. That someone sits down, clears their head, and chooses to give you the weight of their presence, that’s not a transaction, that’s generosity. When we start treating attention as a right instead of a privilege, we flatten it. We drown in half-hearted answers, autopilot emojis, and polite acknowledgments that mean nothing.
Sometimes not answering right away is my way of protecting the value of answering at all.
Silence gets mistaken for absence. Privacy gets mistaken for distance.
I don’t think that’s true.
Not answering immediately, not sharing everything, doesn’t mean I’ve disappeared or I’m ignoring you. It means I’m somewhere else. Maybe talking with my kids. Maybe reading. Maybe staring out a window at nothing. Those moments don’t get documented, but they’re not less for being private. If anything, they’re richer because they’re undisturbed.
We’ve learned to measure connection in updates and posts, in quick replies and green dots showing “active now.” But presence isn’t about broadcasting. Sometimes the truest presence is the one that isn’t shared at all, the life that exists offstage.
Privacy isn’t withdrawal. It’s a form of respect, for yourself, and for the parts of life that deserve to be lived, not displayed.
People sometimes confuse privacy with performance, as if holding things back is a tactic, a way of building mystique. But that’s not it. I’m not trying to be mysterious. I’m not crafting an aura or a character.
Mystery is an accident. It’s what happens when parts of a life aren’t on display: the dinner no one photographs, the conversation that never gets posted, the moment that belongs only to the people who were there.
Not everything has to be shared to exist. In fact, the things that stay unspoken, undocumented, unseen often carry more weight because they resist the spotlight.
So when people say, “You’re hard to read,” I hear it less as a flaw and more as a compliment. It means there’s still something alive that can’t be flattened into an update. Something that remains mine.
I value my space, not just as distance but as possibility. If I answer immediately, I collapse that space into reflex. I become reactive, like a trained dog that salivates on cue. The pause matters because it’s where choice lives. In that gap, I get to decide: Do I really want to give my attention here, now? Or do I want to use it elsewhere first?
That’s what makes the silence important. It’s not avoidance. It’s agency.
There’s pressure to explain absence. A late reply almost demands a preface: sorry, just saw this, or crazy day today. As if silence is a breach of contract that needs repairing.
But what if nothing went wrong? What if I just didn’t want to answer yet? That should be enough.
The relief, for me, is in not having to narrate every gap. To let the spaces between messages belong to me, without footnotes. It’s not rudeness; it’s trust. Trust that the relationship can hold a pause without collapsing.
Maybe that’s the boundary: realizing I don’t owe an explanation for being offline, unavailable, or simply uninterested in performing constant presence. My attention is mine to give, not theirs to assume.
There’s freedom in not always showing your life in letting your silence speak for itself.
It sounds like a contradiction, but the distance I keep often makes the closeness sharper. The silence between messages, the gaps in the feed, the weekends when I vanish, they frame the moments I do show up.
It’s the same logic as music: a song without rests is just noise. The pause gives the note its shape.
We tend to fear absence, but maybe that’s because we’ve forgotten its role. When someone disappears for a while and then walks back into the room, the whole room shifts; their presence lands heavier. More noticed, more valued.
Connection isn’t about constant contact. It’s about rhythm, letting space breathe between encounters so that when they do happen, they feel intense.
Absence doesn’t weaken the thread. It keeps it alive.
Attention is not a default setting. It’s not owed, not guaranteed, not automatic, just because a phone makes someone reachable. It’s earned in small ways, by timing, by care, by trust.
What if we measured presence not by how fast we respond but by how we arrive when we do?
A message can sit unread. The world won’t end. And when I finally answer, not distracted, not rushed, but here, that reply carries more than speed ever could.
The glow of the notification fades, the silence stretches, and life keeps moving. And then, eventually, I step back in, not constantly visible, but present.
Recommended Book:
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell, a reminder that attention isn’t just something we give away, it’s something we get to reclaim.