Why I decided to stop talking for 17 years

“I thought, ‘I don’t want to drive any more.’ That was back in the days of the hippies, and I was certainly a bit of a hippie, and I decided that’s what I was going to do.”

It is worth remembering that this happened in the 1970s, in California. Everyone was driving everywhere, so giving up motor vehicles altogether was a bold move.

John found himself walking alone.

“I thought everyone would walk with me, because the oil spill impacted people so hard that they would say things like ‘I’m going to stop driving.’ So it wasn’t weird for me to say that.”

“However, when I did (what I said), I was told, ‘What are you doing this for? It’s crazy! Nothing will change.'”

“But like my mother used to say, I’m stubborn and I kept walking.”

“While I was doing that, something started to happen. I started to like it. I started to like living where I lived, and not having to get in my car and go into town or shop at the stores… I became part of where I lived. lived.”

Gradually, John realized that instead of his world shrinking from becoming so local, it was expanding.

“Isn’t it amazing? Since I moved so fast before, I had very little time to realize what was around me; getting out of the car was an opportunity for me to experience my surroundings at a human pace.”

But his decision caused controversy.

“People would argue with me about whether one individual could make a difference.”

Drivers criticized him for making them feel bad or wanting them to feel bad, and John defended himself… until he got tired of the sound of his own voice.

On the eve of his 27th birthday, John was reading The Hobbitby JRR Tolkien, and had an idea.

“Those who have read know that when hobbits have a birthday, they do not expect to receive gifts, they give (gifts).”

As he spoke out of his mind, he decided what his gift to others could be: “I’m going to stop talking that day.”

“I got up then that morning and was silent.”

But with so many exchanges in a normal day… how could he resist talking?

“It was very interesting, because people had a lot to say, and to their surprise and delight, I just listened.”

“For me it was revealing because I heard what people had to say, maybe for the first time.”

“Until this day, what I used to do when they started talking to me was think about what I was going to answer, how I was going to say they were wrong and I was right.”

“During this 24-hour vow of silence, I realized that I wasn’t listening to anyone and that now that I was listening, I might learn something.”

“I thought, ‘I’ll shut up another day,’ which turned into another day and then a week.”

But what did his friends say: did they encourage or dissuade him?

“My girlfriend was really happy at first, but after a week or so she wanted to know when I was going to stop. And a lot of people thought I was a little crazy… I wondered myself if I wasn’t.”

And why then did he not speak again?

“Because it felt good, because I realized I was learning. And when I was walking in nature, I felt like it was really a place I needed to explore. It was something I needed to do.”

“For the first few weeks, there were a lot of conversations in my mind about what I should say and when I would start talking, until I finally came to the conclusion that it would stay that way for a year.”

“And once I made the decision, everything calmed down, and I settled into the silence, and the silence settled over me.”

This is a charming phrase: “Silence has settled over me”.

“Oh, it’s wonderful! It’s almost like I was chosen to be that person, and I was so grateful. It’s like a gift. I started out thinking I was giving a gift to my community and it ended up being a gift to me too.”

John had agreed that he would not speak for a year—and began walking across the United States.

He carried his sleeping bag on his back and camped under the stars, taking odd jobs along the way.

He improvised sign language and used a lot of mime to make himself understood. Later, when newspapers began to write about him, he would cut out the articles to use as a business card.

In addition to walking, John painted and played a banjo that was his faithful companion.

When her next birthday came around, she reevaluated her decision and remained silent for another year… and another year, and another…

Seventeen years passed, during which he did “a lot of exploring, walking from California to Oregon and through the wilderness.”

He also went back to studying, so he could graduate, in silence.

“I remember going to the enrollment officer’s office (at the University of Southern Oregon, Ashland) and trying to make him understand that I didn’t speak and that I wanted to study.”

“I sat in front of him and lowered my head as if The Thinkerby Rodin, and then I put my palms together and opened them as if they were a book and did as if I was reading.”

John repeated the sequence until the university official asked, “So you want to study here and learn to think?”

He obtained an undergraduate degree, and contacted the University of Montana to apply for a place in the master’s program in environmental studies.

“I can make it in two years,” he wrote, and started walking.

When he arrived, he had no money.

“The program director said, ‘John, are you ready to study?’ I emptied my pockets, and he said, ‘Oh, you don’t have any money!’ I shook my head, and he said, ‘Come back tomorrow’.”

The next day, “he gave me $150 and said, ‘Sign up for a credit,’ which I did. And he said, ‘All the teachers said they’d let you take the classes for free.'”

He completed his master’s degree with the thesis “Pilgrimage and change: war, peace and the environment” (1986).

“These things became the quintessence of my thoughts as I ended my walk across the US.”

Along the way, he earned a doctorate in land resources at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

His dissertation was about what had motivated his silent walk: the oil spills.

The doors began to open.

He was asked to advise the US government on oil spills and draft regulations for them. The United Nations wanted him as an ambassador for the environment… not bad for a hippie who one day decided to give up motor vehicles and then stopped talking!

“It’s very surprising.”

Three degrees and nearly two decades later, John felt he had something to say and put a date in his diary to start talking again: January 2, 1990.

“I chose Earth Day because I wanted to talk about the environment, something that for me had gone from what we traditionally think about — climate change, oil spills, pollution and things like that — to include how we treat each other.”

“This is something I didn’t hear in my studies, but that’s what I learned by walking and living with people from all over the country.”

And what was the connection between caring for the environment and the mutual care he found?

“The connection was that because we are part of the environment, the way we treat each other is our first opportunity to treat the environment sustainably or even discover or understand what we mean by sustainability.”

“The environment for me has become human rights, civil rights, gender equality and all the ways we interact, because it manifests itself in the physical environment that surrounds us.”

“Think, for example, of how we pollute the water without thinking about the people downstream who need to clean it up.”

In other words, if we exploit each other, we are more likely to exploit the environment, and if we exploit the environment, we are more likely to exploit each other.

This was the message John so wanted to get across that he was willing to break his 17-year silence.

And what was it like to speak again for the first time in so long and in front of an audience that included friends and family that I hadn’t spoken to in so many years?

“I did this in Washington DC, at a hotel that offered to host a small event for me, and I invited some friends and family. There were also some media outlets — National Geographic, Los Angeles Times.”

“I played a little banjo and said, ‘Thanks for being here.’ And my mom jumped out of her chair and said, ‘Hallelujah, Johnny’s talking! And I thought, ‘What an amazing thing, to see my mom so happy.’

“But since I hadn’t heard my voice in so long, I didn’t really understand where it was coming from. I looked back to see who was saying what I was thinking.”

“I was so surprised that I started laughing, and I saw my dad look at me thinking, ‘Yes, he’s really crazy’.”

That’s how spoken words came back into her life… and cars?

“I walked everywhere, regardless of anything, and I realized that I had become a prisoner and that I had the keys to this prison, and I could break free at any time.”

“Now I drive a hybrid.”

Does he miss the time when he didn’t talk and just walked?

“Well, I still walk. In fact, starting in August, I’ll be walking in Africa. Also, sometimes I don’t talk for a day. Anyway, these 17 years of silence and 22 years of walking just don’t go away.” .”

Would you advise other people to do the same?

“I would advise that we listen to each other.”

*This report is based on the episode Why I stopped talking for 17 years (“Why I stopped talking for 17 years”) from the BBC radio show Outlook. You may listen in full here (in English).

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