I’m out of words. Well, not completely. I remember hearing one of my teachers, a renown university ethics professor, remark that as he was retiring he had no last words of advice for us, only the latest, implying truth evolves over time as he also hoped to do.

I have a few choice words left for those who damage truth by lying, but I’ll save them for a later day as poet Robert Frost wrote. When faced with a decision about which of two roads ahead he should take, he chose one but saved the other for another day, suspecting he would never get back.

Language supposedly separates us from other animals. Given its abuse these days, I think I prefer silence. The continual chatter of our times amounts to little but idle noise, unfit for creatures who claim to be rational. Our words often seem “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” as Shakespeare wrote in “Macbeth.”

Solitude is the condition in which silence emerges. As the 20th century poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: “Make your ego porous. Openness, patience, receptivity, and solitude are everything.”

Out of solitude and silence I have found an ancient truth — the “I” is not really as solid as thought, but really a necessary illusion trying to convince me that these rapidly disappearing sense impressions are part of my ego. These impressions are not the source of my identity anymore than the sound of music is my CD player or the spirit inside me only a product of my brain.

Silence is not only golden but out if it comes wisdom, shaped by thoughtfulness and nurtured by time. Show me a person who thinks before speaking and I will show you a wise person who weighs the impact of words, not tossing them around as if blowing verbal bubbles in the air.

There are many ways to think about silence other than it being the opposite of noise. Silence offers a time to sit quietly and reflect and restore our inner balance in a chaotic world. Sometimes silence is harmful if it remains so in the face of wrongdoing. Better a silent protest than acquiescence to unwarranted suffering.

I debated submitting a blank page for my column with nothing written on it. It would certainly grab your attention wouldn’t it? You might even wonder what was going on. If you did, my purpose would have been served — if only for a second or two you’d be left without words as I was this morning staring at a blank computer screen.

I have discovered as a writer that out of a so-called “pregnant pause” comes inspiration for words that follow. I suppose this is part of any creative process, like a sculptor envisions the shape and form of clay before beginning to work on it. After that initial inspiration it’s all perspiration, struggling to find the right language or shape to fill in the gap.

Contemporary American poet Billy Collins writes about the poorer silence emerging after writing:

“And there is the silence of this morning / which I have broken with my pen. / a silence that had piled up all night / like snow falling in the darkness of the / house — / the silence before I write a word / and the poorer silence now.”’

Often silence is contrasted with noise. For example, it is sometimes thought the universe began with a big bang, the noise reverberating through time to us. I prefer thinking everything began with a burst of great light — soundless at first but eventually erupting in a blast of noise unmatched since. This light continued to the reaches of the cosmos but also implanted in us and indeed everything else as well.

There are practical ways to practice solitude. You can begin simply by sitting quietly for a few minutes every morning to begin each day, mirroring how the universe began. Then you can practice what I call “the five-second rule.” Before you speak, count to five before a word escapes. This may avoid later regretting what you might have said.

Out of silence comes light — this is the hope for living. Lean into the light until it becomes part of your very being. That’s mirroring the original !light out of which everything came.

There are many poems about light, but I often return to one I first discovered in “The Old Astronomer” by Sarah Williams, first published in 1868.

“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;

I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.”

Maybe that’s enough to be thankful for — the light within and without that gives hope and courage and even thoughtful, unhurried words.

John C. Morgan is an author, columnist and teacher who writes about personal and social ethics.