The hum of civilization isn't just that which we can measure in decibels, it's also those other things that compete for our attention from the time we open our eyes in the morning until we shut them at night. We are under a constant barrage of competing things wanting our attention. We rush from place to place and from thing to thing. It's like being pecked to death by chickens. Alarm clocks, family, jobs, friends, Facebook updates, email, Television, smart phones, music, ...those are some of the obvious things screaming for our attention. Politics is another source of unpleasant noise, especially this year.
It's easy to lose yourself among all those things competing for your attention. We are seldom left alone to just think, daydream, and figure out who we are and how we fit into this whole creation. It requires some silence to think about big things like "What is the meaning of life?", "What is the meaning of my life?" or "What gives my life meaning?"
The silence we need is more than simply the lack of noise. It is also the silence of not letting a thousand thoughts compete in your mind. I've experienced "silence" while being surrounded by noise. Driving a tractor, plowing corn in the middle of an 80 acre field for example. On the tractor, in the field but miles from there too. You might call it zoning out...but not in the sense that I started plowing out rows of corn...more like my mind was just open and thoughts flowing without much exterior distraction. In a way the noise actually sort of helped with that process.
Sitting on the porch swing with my grandmother on a warm summer afternoon was another kind of silence. She was talking, I was listening, sometimes asking questions, but it was a quiet sitting, quiet talking, non interrupted talking and listening. I remember sometimes hearing the sound of a car moving down the road in front of the house...gravel crunching under the tires. You could see the dust rising behind the car before you heard it. But it didn't compete with what was going on. How different from today. I like to sleep with open windows whenever I can but we live next to a busy street. Opening a window today just lets in a more or less constant roar of passing traffic. Where are all those people going at this time of night? Eventually you just get numb to the sound and don't really hear it any more...still the same amount of traffic moving down the street, but I've managed to push it far into the background, especially late at night while I'm sitting here at my computer working.
What this country needs is less noise in a lot of places...television needs less noise. When did we decide news reporting was better when you had two or three panelists talking about the news...all at the same time. Financial news networks are especially terrible about that sort of thing. Three or four guys sitting around a table debating what's going to happen in the markets or arguing because they don't agree, that's the kind of too much noise I can do without.
We need less noise and more substance from our politicians. Political debates are not debates...they are junior high school shouting matches, it's pathetic. I've seen enough of those to last me until I die.
I'm thinking it might be a good idea to take up fishing...being out on a boat, away from people, traffic, TV, phones, and all the other trappings of "civilization" sounds pretty good. Just me and the dog.
