You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hume.

What can you learn by sitting in silence?

In this moving talk, author Pico Ayer reflects on how in a noisy world, silence is a

powerful living presence that any of us can tap into to reconnect with ourselves and those around

us. After the talk, check out my interview with Pico on this very feed. We sat down while on

site at the TED conference in Vancouver

for our Beyond the Talk interview series. We chat more about his work, the through line that connects

his five TED talks, and more.

One evening, I was fast asleep in our tiny two-room apartment when suddenly the phone began to ring.

So I stumbled across the darkened space and I picked up the receiver and I heard a strange voice telling me that my father had been rushed into the hospital.

Naturally, I went to be by his side and for 14 days and nights my mother and I sat right next to him,

urging him on. But one quiet Sunday morning, the zigzagging line on the screen next to his bed flattened

out, and two men in black came to carry my father away.

And I suddenly realized, as my parents' only child, it was now all up to me, to console my grieving

mother, to organize the memorial service and the obituary, to notify friends, to alert the banks.

It was really the busiest time I've known.

So what did I do?

Well, one morning when I was sure that my mother was well looked after,

I got into my car and I drove for four hours along narrow winding roads up the Californian coastline,

and I got out in a place of thrumming silence, high above the sea, and sat on a bench

overlooking the water. I let my anxious thoughts recede and gave myself over to everything

...