Amanda Reid | A quiet American

Reid About It! | The undervalued aspects of quiet

By Amanda Reid 03/21/16 10:03pm

I still get sweaty palms when I enter into a lecture hall, especially when I’m told participation counts. A cold fear passes over me when I think about how loud my tiny voice will have to grow in order to be heard by the professor, who seems to stand miles away from me. When you need to command the attention of upwards of a hundred people at a time, speaking out loud is a daunting, if not painful, experience.

I’ve been quiet ever since I can remember other people complaining about it. It’s not a label I give myself; it’s a trait that’s judged by others. Even if my mind is racing and my thoughts feel loud, I’m a quiet person by definition of how others see me. And I’m not alone in this — I’ve found that some people just don’t like to speak as much.

Quietness also grew out of a fear of loudness. In primary school, if I ever talked above a whisper in the library, an intimidating leather–skinned librarian would walk up to me and tell me he’d glue my ears to the ceiling fan if I didn’t shut up.

I never saw it as such a flaw until I got older, when grades demanded a big voice that could carry itself far enough to be noticed by everyone in the room. Throughout middle and high school, quiet was not only strange, it was a cause of concern in others. I was interrogated constantly for being myself with questions like “Did I say something to hurt you?” and “Are you scared of me?” and “Why don’t you speak more?” My report card in high school was littered with recommendations for me not only to speak more, but also to speak more loudly.

Susan Cain, who spoke about the Quiet Revolution in her TED talk “The Power of Introverts,” argues that the work and school environments cater to and accommodate a more extroverted community, yet nearly half of the population is introverted. In a sense, our school environment is dominated by loud spaces, and perhaps is in greater need of quiet ones.

At a place like Penn, loudness can signal assertion and confidence. Loudness is a marker of networking charisma, a means of crafting a sales pitch for yourself. In a place where we rely on participation and lengthy discussions to power creativity, quiet is undervalued, maybe even discouraged.

But being quiet actually works in our favor in a lot of ways. Quiet encourages us to listen to others. When we’re not speaking, we’re listening. Oftentimes our own voice can act as a muffling device, shutting out others to keep ourselves as the main focus. We reduce our ability to concentrate on what people have to say when we don’t allow ourselves to be quiet.

Quiet breeds a kind of self-reflection that is absent when there is a consistent need to speak. It allows the mind to pause, take a mental breath and think carefully before communicating. Quiet makes you more aware of every movement you make, and every rippling action you produce. Quiet gives weight to the world outside yourself.

Quiet accentuates loudness, so when I do speak, people take notice. Quiet people are often unexpectedly articulate, unexpectedly loquacious or unexpectedly interesting, because no one assumes that quietness can carry its own “voice.”

One of my favorite things about being the “quiet grey mouse” (a description of myself lovingly crafted by a friend) is the ability to remove myself from “me” and notice and observe the little quirks people have. Maybe they play with their nail beds, maybe they flip their phone around in their hand, maybe their eyes dart around the room rather than making eye contact.

A self-aware silence encourages an observation of others that takes you completely away from yourself. You see that the world is, in fact, not so quiet after all. Activity is constant.

Embracing quietness does not mean rejecting having a voice. Like all things, there must be a harmony between loudness and quiet, with one balancing out the other. If we recognize that quiet and loud neither have inherent value nor exist in binary opposition, we can be a little less judgmental and a little more appreciative of people’s qualities.

AMANDA REID is a College sophomore from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, studying cinema studies & English. Her email address is amreid@sas.upenn.edu. “Reid About It!” usually appears every other Tuesday. 

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