I placed seven piles of stripped textbooks on a school gym bench. Taking the stacks in order, the English word ‘silence’ can be read from the letters embedded in the books. A problem often faced by today’s youth is the value of long hours spent at school for life. We remember nothing of what we have learned over years of hunched over books, we cannot use it. I have found the English word silence, which, in addition to silence, also means oblivion and muteness, and in some interpretations also expresses the absence of knowledge itself, to be an appropriate way of describing this elusive state.