The Weight of Quiet Things

The Weight of Quiet Things

How Wisdom, Worn Floors, and a Careful Tongue Kept Me Standing

By Kateb Shunnar

I’ve come to believe silence has muscle. Not that awkward silence where nobody know what to say, but the intentional kind the kind that leans back in its chair and watches foolishness wear itself out. Quiet things carry weight. Heavy weight. The pause before you respond. The breath you take when your pride itching to speak before your spirit checks in. The choice to keep your mouth closed even when your tongue warming up like it got somewhere to go.

Words don’t look dangerous, but they slippery. They slide in easy and settle deep. They’ll cut past skin, past bone, and curl up right next to memory like they always belonged there. Folks love to say, “It’s just words,” but they don’t live with the aftertaste. They don’t wake up years later still chewing on something somebody said sideways on a Tuesday afternoon. Scripture wasn’t being dramatic when it said the tongue holds life and death. That’s everyday death. The slow kind. Trust dying. Peace dying. Intimacy drying up because something sharp was said and never really unsaid.

A deceitful mouth always finds an audience, and a destructive tongue loves company. Mess don’t travel solo it brings a whole brass band. I’ve watched people return evil for good and then wonder why their house felt heavy. Evil don’t just stop by it takes its shoes off and puts its feet on the coffee table. Once you pay back good with nastiness, don’t expect peace to hang around.

And once a quarrel starts, it’s like poking a hole in a levee. You might think you just letting off a little pressure, but here come the flood. Everybody downstream getting soaked, including folks who had nothing to do with it. That’s why wisdom says drop it early. Let it go while it’s still light enough to lift.

But fools mistake noise for power. They think loud equals strong. They think fast responses mean smart ones. They got money in their pocket but can’t afford understanding. Restraint don’t come with a price tag. Calm is earned. Anybody can talk. Everybody can’t listen to themselves mid-sentence and say, “Yeah… maybe not.”

I learned that sitting in my grandmother’s house at 2688 Jonquil Street, where the floors were worn smooth from decades of walking, pacing, praying, and fussing just enough to make a point. That house had rules without signs. The porch boards creaked like they had opinions. The screen door slammed with authority. And if you came in there popping off, Grandma wouldn’t yell. She’d just pause. And that pause? Whew. That silence would snatch your soul back into your body.

That’s where she told me, “Kateb, don’t go tit for tat.”

She said it like it was gravity something you don’t argue with, just adjust to.

She told me tit for tat keeps mess breathing. Feeds negativity like it’s on life support. Turns small misunderstandings into generational grudges. She said it don’t allow grace, don’t allow folks to be human, don’t allow a bad day to just be a bad day. And then she leaned in, lowered her voice, and said, “Sometimes folks poke you so you poke back. That’s how they keep control.”

That hit me later in life, when I saw how childish vengeance dresses itself up as self-respect and calls it grown.

These days everybody talking about “matching energy,” like it’s some kind of spiritual badge. Baby, match it where? In bitterness? In chaos? In emotional poverty? I’m not matching low vibrations. I’m not lowering my frequency to prove I can get loud. I’m not wrestling in the mud to show I know how to get dirty. You can keep that. I don’t eat at the slop trough. Never did. Even if it’s the last meal on earth, I’ll fast before I feed my spirit garbage.

Silence ain’t weakness. Silence is discernment with its feet kicked up.

Now don’t get it twisted I’ve had my moments. I’ve said things I had to apologize for later. I’ve let my mouth outrun my wisdom a time or two. I’ve found myself in broken seasons—not shattered, just worn thin. Tired in places sleep don’t touch. I noticed my flaws more clearly then. Saw my shadows stretch when the light hit sideways.

But light don’t need perfection to work. Glow sticks don’t shine until they crack. That’s the part nobody talks about. The breaking activates the glow. When you feel exposed, unsure, split open that’s often when your spirit shining the brightest. Connection does that. Purpose does that. Even cracked, you’re still lit.

Avoiding strife is honorable. It’s grown. Every fool is quick to quarrel, quick to defend pride that don’t even pay rent. Gossip always betrays confidence, so I move carefully around folks who talk too much. And I don’t say, “I’ll pay you back for this,” because revenge is clumsy in human hands. I wait. The Creator handles books better than I ever could.

Pride, unchecked, will quietly erode your foundation. You won’t notice until the walls start leaning. Better to live on the edge of a roof with peace than in a big house full of noise. Pleasure without balance leaves you empty. Indulgence without discipline has you wondering why abundance keep passing you by waving.

You can prep all day for battle, sharpen your words, rehearse your comebacks but victory still belongs to the Creator, not your mouth.

My grandmother used to say, “Watch who you sit with too long.” Your circle shapes you whether you admit it or not. When the people around you don’t stir your spirit or stretch your thinking, you’re not surrounded—you’re contained. Friendship feeds the spirit in ways we overlook. The right people steady you when you wobble.

Faith ain’t loud. It’s lived. It shows up in patience, in service, in kindness that don’t need credit. It looks like choosing compassion over cleverness, restraint over reaction, wisdom over winning.

She told me a story once hers, not borrowed about a man who carried a sack on his back. Every harsh word thrown at him, he picked it up and stuffed it inside. Insults, lies, jealousy, resentment just piling them up. Over time the sack got heavy. Bent him forward. Slowed his steps. When he asked how to get revenge, the wise woman told him to open the sack. The words flew out like birds and returned to the mouths they came from.

She said, “You don’t have to throw words back. They know their way home.”

I think about that often. About how bitterness always circles back. About how quiet, chosen with intention, can hold more power than noise ever will.

Kateb Nuri-Alim Shunnar

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