There is another perspective according to which if the quality of thoughts undergoes marked improvement, one stops seeking the inner silence.
Sorry, Ms Beckerman, your "we" does not include me.
Too often, columnists sound as if they are addressing only themselves, rather than the great diversity of humanity, America, and even NYC. Not everyone has been sucked into the social media quicksand or has a smart phone addiction. It is not necessary or respectful to address readers as if we are a pen of sheep. Many of us are able to see a con game for what it is without getting sucked into it first. When you arrive at the age where arthritis begins to set in, you don't just jump on every speeding bandwagon that comes along. You wait for it to slow down a bit and take a good look first to see if it is worth the effort.
4
I am a late deafened adult who wears bilateral cochlear implants , which enable me to hear normally. But when I disconnect the processors, I am in total silence. I love having the best of both worlds. It’s wonderful to sleep without hearing a single noise; it’s great to take a luxurious bath in silence; I also have opted out of wearing my waterproof box when I’m swimming laps in the pool, which gives my workout a meditative quality. In short: it’s great to be able to “close my ears” and tune out.
2
Back to the 1960s. Everyone tune out. Never hear anything around you. Never be aware of your surroundings, including the people around you. Good advice...for someone other than me. A normal well-adjusted person can deal with silence, noise and music...and enjoy something about each of them most of the time.
"We chew with our mouths open"? Blech. No, "we" don't.
4
Why do restaurants have to be so incredibly noisy? It's physically and mentally painful.
14
@Dalgliesh Two reasons:
1) The proprietors like it because it gives the impression that business is booming and that their establishment is popular. The increased noise suggests a restaurant that is bustling.
2) Younger patrons want to be in a place that is popular, to feel that they are where it's all happening. A noisy place tends to create that impression. This is important to young people. Also, their hearing is much more acute and they don't have nearly as much trouble communicating through the din as people over forty.
Well, I hope that clears that up.
By the way, I find it just as annoying as you do.
2
What do we hope to find in silence but to connect to ourselves, a piece of peace, or a moment with God, a quiet transcendent moment.
But even in the noisy din, He is there and so my soul is at peace "For where can I go from Your Spirit, or Where can I flee from Your presence"... that You are not there. And You restore me and dispel the worldly chatter like dust.
2
This is a reason why I'm a gardener.
5
@Donna Amen ! Away from noise in the outside environment.
And for me, pulling weeds, moving plants, arranging rocks, etc. quiets all the turmoil inside my head as (luckily) I can only think abt. one thing at a time.
1
Theodore Dreiser's fine novel The Financier is the best rendering of a stint in Philadelphia's panopticon prison (like all fancy ideas, better inception than execution.)
It's not just audible noise that is accosting our lives.
It's also VISUAL noise...all those screens flashing, the aggressive unnecessary "chyrons" parading on them.
All these visuals trying to steal our attention, to make us buy things we do not need are usually accompanied by high decibel, loudmouth sentences delivered at the speed of light.
(The latest generation is now talking at that unintelligible speed!) Is it any wonder that we are all on the cusp of experiencing ADD?
I was watching a few episodes of the TV show "Grey's Anatomy." There is a grating, constant, background sung soundtrack that distracts & interferes with the well-written
dialogue and drama of each scene. I'm noticing that this use of unnecessary background "noise" is creeping onto other worthwhile shows. Are the young generations that bored with good dialogue?
We are inundated with messages aural & visual 24/7 to the point where we cannot think; at the end of the day we don't understand why we bought some silly thing that we don't need & which brings absolutely nothing valuable into our lives. That's the master game plan of non-stop marketing...to the point where we consume ourselves.
7
@nicole H Try watching British tv shows on Amazon, Netflix, etc.
Thanks for your comment. I recently watched a friend's tv for what used to be one of my favorite shows. I soon turned to movie on cable. I realized now it was noise (& as another comment mentioned) the rapid-changing scenes during commercials. Mostly I watch British movies & tv shows on my laptop.
1
Walk through the woods alone on a late spring day. Listen to twigs crunching underneath while counting all of the different shades of green in the trees. Now is a great time to also reread or read for the first time Ram Dass’s “Be Here Now.” Far more noise and sensory overload today than ever before.
1
I remember when Muzak was introduced in our world, infesting every nook and cranny with fake music. Restaurants and other public places became noisy, the din of shouted conversations over the bad music. Public noise has become so ubiquitous that most people are unaware of it. Loudness became a feature of rock, such that people wear ear plugs to go to rock concerts. The loudness makes us physically and mentally sick. I call the police on parked cars blasting such noise. The big city police can’t be bothered with such complaints.
4
Ah, I remember silence! Once you have tinnitus, silence exists as a memory only.
5
What has always amazed me is the complete lack of seriousness about noise pollution. Cars need smog tests, but not noise tests. Noise ordinances are rarely enforced. And motorcycles-- forget it. It's impossible to open windows even at night because some inconsiderate motorist decides to roar through the neighborhood at 2 a.m., windows open, blaring "music" which is little more than four-letter jump-rope rhymes set to the tune of sonic booms. I favor electric cars not because they're energy efficient, but because they're quiet.
5
As Busch says, as we age we become invisible. I can certainly attest to that, having it experienced it firsthand as I near 70.
4
I am lucky to have a home that is surrounded by silence. Like space, silence is the greatest wealth we can have in these noisy times.
4
Perhaps for some of us with depression or another mind disorder, the result of an absence of noise for too long is like someone in a dark space mentally, possessed of a mind disorder, who ingests a psychedelic substance. Their "bad trip" can be at best disturbing, or worse, devastating.
The nature of the person can highly influence whether or not prolonged silence is beneficial or pernicious. How silence is spent may be important, too.
5
Choice is nice.
Sometimes quiet is heavenly, other times it can weigh one down. Ditto music, conversation, pouring rain....
Sometimes cocooning refreshes and inspires sociability.
Tools, like all technologies, are to be used when needed; not used when not needed. Nice to have them though.
I wish everyone had the opportunity to turn noise on and off as needed. Not instantaneously or at every whim. But when necessary.
6
Good Lookin' Gal! I quite enjoyed this treatment of silence and the leads that this exploration revealed.
Just wanted to say that you earned the NYT another digital subscription. Tell them they you you a lunch, and a raise!
Thank you! : )
My favorite places since childhood have been the quietest. Libraries, the woods, an empty beach or meadow. At sleep-away camp in the Adirondacks, I sometimes retreated to the Nature Hut, where I sat on a worn leather couch and read old Life magazine issues and the Whole Earth Catalog. It was 1974, a camper could have quiet alone time then, and there were no phones, no laptops, just the sounds from outside of kids playing Frisbee, softball, and soccer. And the magazine ad for a Volkwagen Beetle said, "Under $2,000. Again."
37
Wow, a lot of declarations about how morally bankrupt, ethically derailed and "narcissistic" it would be for anyone to tune out *now* during these perilous times when every citizen has the responsibility to "stay informed".
And, again, as I ask myself all day every day, why does everything have to be about Trump? It's a book review and it's not about anything that has anything to do with Trump or politics yet we get it through a Trump lens, whether he's named or not. Why?
And what does it even mean to "stay informed" in an era when all the "media" throws at us is for everything other than "staying informed." I have to consume hours of nonsense just to learn a few facts. I have to endure endless speculation and political gossip to get a kernel of information which is truly useful to me as a "citizen" or enriching to me as a human being.
It's a huge imposition to try to stay informed. Then there is the black hole of social media which is really the single most depressing development of human society to come along in a really long time, if not ever.
I disagree with the writer -- dropping out is really the only sane way to live a life worth living. And, frankly, gives one a much better chance of making a positive contribution to society although that is only for a rare handful of humans at any one time anyway.
70
@ck
Thank you for writing this, I couldn't think of the words (brain's too full of drek and defensiveness).
11
I agree with you. The words about Hagerman “His decision to disengage was also, particularly now, the height of irresponsibility, an abdication of that most basic duty of citizenship: staying informed” were most depressing. Paying attention to all the noise is destroying the final years of my life. I search for peace and try to share it where I can.
6
@ck Bravo! (or Brava!) for all but the last half-sentence. Lots of good people are doing good things. Sadly, too many of them feel they are alone in doing so.
4
The U.S. isn't that bad. Having lived overseas for four years I cherish the ability to come home and enjoy silence--something I couldn't do in Mexico, for example. If it's not an assembly-line of drivers using their horns, then its the gas truck blasting its music to let the neighbors know to refill their gas tanks. And that's not to mention the fireworks set off nearly everyday, the man yelling in front of every house that he is selling tamales, the cars outfitted with mega-horns blasting away the day's news stories or the new Zumba course that opened up down the street. I'll take the "noisy U.S." any day.
10
I live in an apartment. A white noise machine and kind considerate neighbors keep me sane. Fairly, anyway. One particular peeve: libraries are no longer quiet zones. My local ones are designed with very high ceilings so sound bumps and spins around and slaps my ears. Even the librarians shout.
23
@Sandra Kay
Alas, the disappearance of the quiet library! In the suburban libraries I frequent, a desperate attempt to retain their funding by being relevant has led to the addition of cafes, teen game events, people talking obliviously on cellphones...and one must take refuge in study rooms, if one is free, or noise-blocking headphones. Bring back the “sshhh”-ing librarians, say I, futilely.
11
My partner and I were blessed to live for 5 years in a small cabin on the National Forest, 9 miles from our nearest neighbor. Spending our days in near silence, speaking only the most essential words, we came to realize how subtle are the sounds of the non-human world - wind, creek, birds - disturbed only as the occasional pickup/ATV drove the road, out of sight but in our ears. Only humans, and occasionally ravens, blare our presence to each and all.
As we became less verbal, the inanity of most social "conversation" became so apparent - words for the sake of words, noise for the sake of noise. Gradually, unintentionally, our friendships narrowed to those who are comfortable sharing karma sans constant chatter.
When commenting on their appreciation of the southern UT high-desert Gloriousness, "outside" visitors frequently mention "the quiet, it's so quiet".
Unsolicited advice? If you can't move from The Noise, learn to backpack, find the largest Wilderness area on the map, walk as far as your feet and supplies allow, slow down and Listen. Blessed Quiet!
"Ordinary men hate solitude.
But the master makes use of it,
Embracing her aloneness, realizing
She is one with the whole universe."
- Tao To Ching
“I should stop talking now.
Having a voice separates me from All That Is.”
- “Lamb”, Christopher Moore
46
Both books sound gimmicky to me, as if the writers had a stunt idea for a book sale and built a thesis around it. I'm on Facebook, have a cell phone and, obviously, WiFi. My phone often goes a day without a peep; I'm on Facebook 3 or at most 4 times a week, for 10 or 12 minutes each time; and I don't have cable or any streaming service. I live in New York and feel very much a part of the wider world, but don't feel oppressed by its intrusions.
2
Silence has a different effect on people in different situations. It is life giving when it turns off the external voices that are constantly demanding without giving two hoots about listener, which of course is natural when speaker is addressing the masses and cannot make allowances for alternative views. However it becomes oppressive to those who wish to be heard and are kept in isolation or to those who need external support to turn off their inner voices.
1
From ancient times, an Arabian saying paraphrased: only open your mouth to speak when what you are about to say is more beautiful than silence.
6
Could be, but leave the US and compare.
I am spending a few years in Brasil now. And, I suspect is not the only location worth a decibel study.
Here, the panoply of ear piercing stimulus is staggering if not catastrophic.
From dogs that bark NON-STOP 24/7 to vans announcing merchandise at full blast level, parties going day and night with music (if could call it as such) that resemble the saturn ricket blast only that never takes off, and many more ear piercing modalities.
Since no public space has acoustic treatment, any gathering of excited Brazilians that chat all the time simultaneously, are forced to rise their voice to make themselves heard what elevates the torture to incredible levels. When you leave you feel like a hangover headache similar to drinking a full bottle.
Make no mistake! There are strict laws regarding decibels here.
Problem is that as usual with any law, nobody respects them.
Did I mention defective mufflers?
If you switch now to places like India, Turkey or basically almost any other in this crowded planet, you'll find that the USA "sounds" like a cemetery at midnight on Christmas night.
3
The 1.6 billion Mainland Chinese know silence and the anonymity of being one insignificant drop in a deep and wide ocean of humanity. I suspect Indians, Indonesians, Nigerians -- all nations with mass populations -- feel the same.
If you count at all, it's with your family, village, fellow workers, students, soldiers. Otherwise you're one ant among a billion others, unknown, insignificant and invisible.
If you're insignificant and invisible, you are also silent albeit in a cacophony of voices straining to be heard.
It's no accident that Eastern spiritual traditions stress the insignificance of individuals and the rejection of ego, vanity, greed, in fact anything that might feed the illusion that one matters in some way. Emotions are to be tamed and Earthly pleasures denied as the path to enlightenment and an evanescent being.
Silence isn't good for democracy. What the book review suggests (I have't read them) as an elusive and beneficial silence is also in a democracy alienation and detachment.
Those Americans alienated, apart and disengaged also elected Trump by default and allowed a intrusive noise to disturb us.
To be rid of Trump and his racket requires more Americans to step away from their silent apathy towards the commons and engage.
I think the silence I favor is actually literacy -- the act of reading quietly is also a meditation that leads to informed engagement.
Silence is available in abundance upon death.
Make noise while you can.
12
The din, the clatter and incessant noise of our society is a reflection of the narcissism of our age. All of it amounts to "Look at MEEEE!!" The racket grows tiresome these days.
For me there come times when I need to retreat to the quiet. And so I do. I turn everything....off. It is a much needed respite from the societal cacophony that continues to grow, and it's one becoming more discordant with every passing day.
I daresay without that safe harbor of peace , that simple "off button" click into silence, I would go quite mad.
John~
American Net'Zen
4
The USA noisy? LOL, come here to SE Asia. I am currently spending the winter in the Philippines, where the noise is in your face and constant - huge speakers blasting at stores and malls, motorbikes without mufflers, incessant car horns, barking dogs and karaoke until midnight.. and the roosters start crowing at 3:30am. It's like that everywhere here. They think it's normal.
By comparison, I have no problem finding quiet and solitude when I'm in the US. My own home for example. Americans don't know how good they have it.
4
i always enjoy reading about how hearing people complain about noise. In a world that gives little respect to those of us with hearing impairments, it's small revenge.
2
The truism that being plugged into the news is required of a decent person is preposterous.
Is an "abdication of basic citizenship" the highest crime today? Must we waste our lives in some convention of patriotism that demands that we be woke and intertwined?
I was 3 years a monastic. There was excitement outside, just as there always is: war, elections, controversy, awards, celebrities. OJ came and went.
When I returned to the world I saw that I am infinitesimal in relationship to the forces of society. My hyper-vigilance, in relationship to, say, American foreign policy, is absurd.
If all of our anxiety and anger over the current administration had meaning, wouldn't the president have being transformed into some dog's chew toy by now?
I'm intensely engaged now, involved on social justice fronts, volunteering, my head full of statistics and arguments. There are rare moments of human interaction that matter, but the more I do this, the more I think I may as well be addicted to video games.
That it is no different.
It can be the ultimate intelligence and the greatest compassionate act, to stop listening.
Life is a gift and a series of choices.
It is ripe and rife with snares and cons.
Nobody be shamed for living it on their own terms, and shunning all the excruciating noise completely.
Its a grave decision, either way.
10
@Eric If there's no difference between what you're doing and playing video games, there's something awry. Maybe you need more silence to find a better way of engaging with the world.
1
Thomas Merton also wrote, already in 1965(!): ""The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds and makes of all political and social life a mass illness. Without this housecleaning we cannot begin to see. Unless we see we cannot think. This purification must begin with mass media."
-from the book "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander" (p. 77 my edition)
26
People's jaws drop when I tell them I don't have a smart phone, yet I function fine with my flip phone, that I only turn on when I'm out and have to be in touch with someone I'm meeting up with. Anyone who thinks they're in charge of their phone is living a lie, and turning the ringer off only means you have to look at it; not all noise is caused by vibration of air.
An amazing thing in any country is how many think it's fine to have a dog bark as loud as it can, inside or outside, as if the dog's right to bark supersedes the right of those around it to silence.
Eastern State Penitentiary has been well within Philadelphia's city limits for over a century. It's a short walk from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
9
@Bridgman: I always get a kick out of people who brag of owning "only" a flip phone--as if they were marooned on some desert island, communicating only through messages in corked bottles.
It's still a phone that goes with you everywhere!
What a great book review. Thanks!
4
I've been living overseas where I've got far too many people all living in small concrete boxes on top of each other (and me). Nobody seems able to drive here without liberal applications of the horn. Music is played at top volume, often late at night. And no one seems to think anything of fighting with their family and others at the top of their lungs, in their homes, the building hallways, stores, buses, outside.
Add to this political fights, terrorist attacks and the always looming threats of war. And of course the ever present cell phone, which everyone seems addicted to, pinging away.
At this point I'm looking forward to living somewhere that I can just be in peace and nature. Hike, take walks, garden. Live someplace where I don't have to listen to the neighbors mower, weed whacker, ATV, snowmobile, music. Try to tune out the political fights and gamesmanship as much as possible. Nirvana! I suspect I was born in the wrong century!
20
@Greenie
Come here. It is heaven.
2
@Jill Okay, I just looked up Pico Azores. It's isolated, all right. I'll give you that.
But one thing that I really don't like about wind is that it's never quiet when the wind is blowing.
I'm guessing--just from the vegetation, waves, and clouds I'm seeing in the Wikipedia photos--that the wind blows a lot in Pico Azores.
Great for kite flying. Not so much for true silence.
Tuning out is a strength of mine. It is how I survived the New York City public school system in the 80's and 90's.
Yet, it is also a weakness. I have used it to push people, social issues, cultural issues, and news away from me.
So, now I am working on finding balance.
11
You got to get with it! Get them headphones and choose your own ambience - so chic!
2
You say it's almost always men who do this. I disagree. Women do it too. Maybe we're just not as eager to share our solitary experiences with the outside world, preferring to tuck those places away from humanity's prying eyes. GPS turned off, silent on the insistent fb requests to know where I took that photograph. Why tell anyone where I go? I'd be afraid of the hordes that would follow. Secret places=Solitude=Silence.
11
During my early teens, my father enrolled the whole family in the NRA and for a cost of $5 each he purchase world war I 1903 A3 30-06, a 45 semi automatic pistol and a M1 carbine. We had a large Navy ammunition dump where lots of veterans worked. They were destroying vast quantities of ammunition for our 30-06 rifles because they had corrosive mercury primers. You had to clean the rifle for 3 days otherwise the interior of the barrel would corrode. The going price for a trunk load of this ammo to be destroyed was $5 for a car trunk load. So as sort, we had close friends who had a very very large farm and for sport we would turn large limestone boulders into smaller rocks. We would fire 300 or more founds each. Ear protection? We didn't know what that was. I had hearing tests done over 50 YAG and the audiologist asked if I heard ringing in my ears.
Few NYT readers have ever fired a weapon but if you do - ear protection is cheap and works.
4
First off, there is no such thing as silence unless it is the social isolation of an anechoic chamber. Even in the seemingly dead quiet of a country home with no TV, music, or computer playing, there is the EMF noice from electric lights.
Relative silence gives the freedom to think.
I noticed in solo hiking in the wilderness of British Columbia that it took three days and nights to begin to hear nature, it taking that long for the nerves to calm down and dispel the burden of city noise.
Then on a mountain top, I could hear the sun rising provided there was only a whisper of wind.
Go to an airport or a public space, and the TV is on, noise and all even if no one is watching. I wear industrial ear plugs all the time in public to isolate myself from the assault of noise, and in particular, I have trained myself to avoid all forms of advertising, soic and visual. (NYT are you "listening"? I have a subscription and I will not turn off my ad-blocker)
11
@Svirchev In an anechoic chamber, you WILL hear the noise of your blood pumped by your heart.
3
Prisons, hospitals, and nursing homes are NOT quiet; quite the opposite. Indeed, I think the cruelest form of punishment is probably solitary confinement.
Hospitals are slowly seeing the damage their noise is doing, as well as the "forced routine."
Nursing homes are, quite simply, our modern day death camps. The people in most of them are tortured by noise, intrusion, and regimentation that is uncalled for.
Try ,oh try, to keep your loved ones "home." That place where when you ask, "They have to take you in." Robert Frost..
12
@Craig Indeed, no noisier places than prisons and nursing homes.
1
The intentional blasting noise levels at restaurants, clubs, shopping malls, you name it, has made it uninteresting to go out. It's so wonderful to be out of the US where one can dine and carry a quiet conversation.
I would love to see a Noise Guide that would rate noise levels for all sorts of businesses (I'll leave a store if the music is blasting) and even scale up to the noise of neighborhoods and towns. People seem to have no idea how much this onslaught of noise is affecting their nervous system.
42
@Rebecca
Totally agree about the blasting noise in restaurants, clubs and malls. It has driven me out of stores many times. We frequent mom and pop restaurants when we can find them. You can actually have a conversation without shouting.
7
When I was kid I in the seventies I got environmentalism merit badge. One of the chapters in the manual was about noise pollution. It seems so quaint now.
Seems like every time I go to a restaurant these days there is always somebody yelling into a speaker phone that is yelling back at them. (What a brilliant idea. Lets give everybody their own personal walkie talkie)
You also have multiple tables of people watching videos and all the kids are watching their cartoons on their tablets. One restaurant always plays music that I enjoy but half the time you can't hear it over the cell phones.
But the proliferation of back up beepers has to be the worst because there is no way to get away from them. I can hear them almost half a mile away. Patches of woods that I've walked and hiked for years now have the sound of beepers in the distance. There are areas in Metro Atlanta now where there is a constant cacophony of beep beep beep.
I live near a UPS center and they have been cited by the county multiple times for back up beeper noise but they still haven't stopped them completely.
21
Quiet is indeed the greatest luxury of all - and increasingly elusive as others noisily pursue their illusory "luxuries" : overhead aircraft, outdoor music, air-conditioning and perpetual "landscaping".
9
I'm 100% deaf. Recently, I told a friend it must be wonderful to hear different sounds. His response: "Not when they all happen at the same time. For example, in a food store, there's nonstop music, people constantly talking, somebody being paged, the air conditioner, chairs scraping the floor, different noises from all over the place." I never thought of it that way. I thought that was interesting.
27
@Arlene There definitely IS a silver lining to your otherwise difficult cloud !!!!!!
During my adjustment as an American in Japan, the cultural contrast surrounding the concept of noise struck me the “loudest.” We tend to need to fill silence with chatter, no matter how meaningless or invasive. Long silences in conversations here is quite normal. People listen, reflect, and respond in time. Filling the air with empty fodder is an American way of life. There is some comfort in a check-out counter chat by the tabloids in the States, but deep silences practiced abroad feel much more nurturing.
9
Was not hard to pick up the quiet life, learned how to tune out with 12 people living in one house. The books look excellent,
but for me, silence and tuning out was acquired on my own and easily maintained to this day.
I do have a cell phone, but the ringer is turned off.
The iPhone serves me, I don't serve the phone. And for those people who are thinking of adding silence to their lives, this is the best advice I can give anyone.
Be the master of Your Life, not just a participant
41
@Mimi So you are blessed with a brain that has the capacity to tune all these unwanted sounds out of your awareness. Those of us with autism and other sensory processing orders absolutely CANNOT filter out non-salient stimuli. Our brains lack this feature. I go home from work every day mentally and physically exhausted. However, I am pleased to see that there are plenty of people commenting here who don't seem to be afflicted with these conditions but yet are also fed up with the carnival of chaos that surrounds us each and every day. Unlike you, many of us have not been able to "be the master (or mistress" of a life so brutally intruded upon by others. So please be thankful that you have this ability, rather than looking down upon those of us who do not.
4
"Ours is a noisy country"? No, it isn't, at least not compared to China. Enter a supermarket or mall and the music is deafening, and lines snake around to the checkout counter. Promoters blare at you from every corner with bullhorns. The Chinese consider all this "lively" and would no doubt consider a calm, uncrowded, quiet American supermarket boring.
17
I sure wish my supermarket was quiet. Tell me just one in this country where the sound system is silent, or one American restaurant, for that matter.
4
@globalnomad I just spent 4 weeks in Laos and never realized how quiet Portland is until I returned - no loud music playing at all hours, no crowing roosters, only occasional barking dogs, no noisy scooters or loud crickets...
6
@Jody Sorry, I don't believe you. Maybe one or two that you go to. Not my experience all over this country, with the exception of my nearest Walmart Neighborhood Market, which plays music a little too loud. But even the Walmart Supercenter farther down the road keeps the music low. Same with other supermarkets.
1
Thousands of us on the autistic spectrum long for all the clatter and bustle to go away...but as long as we must function in the world, we must cope with the roar of contemporary restaurants, the piped-in music and TV screens assaulting us at every turn in public spaces, even the noisy flipflops that so many people have taken to wearing everywhere...including to church! My fondest dream upon retiring is to spend most of my time in an environment of my own design, where sensory overload is minimal.
52
I agree.
6
@Martha Goff: I'm also on the spectrum. I wear ear plugs whenever I go out in public. The noise blaring in supermarkets and other stores, in hospitals and medical offices, and out on the street is overwhelming and disturbing. Do most people even like all this noise? I certainly don't.
6
@Martha Goff Even gas stations now have those awful . . . things, I can't even think of a word for them, but someone somewhere decided that we must be "entertained" during the few minutes it takes to fill up the tank. The "entertainment" consists of people yapping about nothing. I patronize only those stations that don't have them, and I let the owners know that that's why I choose them.
4
Brilliant article. Silence can be deafening and silence can be golden. It can mean so many different things. It van be a prison or it can be freedom.
21
The peace of silence begins in the mind, and, as is hinted in the last paragraph, is accessed and nurtured by meditation, to be carried out into the noise and tumult of the world. For the uninitiated, earplugs are handy and easy to carry.
13
I work as a tour guide in Paris, specializing in American tourists. Indeed, one of the first tips I give them, as diplomatically as possible, is that talking at the top of your lungs in public settings is very much frowned upon in most civilized nations. And that chewing gum, especially with your mouth wide open, is best left to seven year olds.
On the other hand, excessive noise is now a universal problem, and a debilitating one.
I have several times been driven to almost murderous rage by noisy neighbors. Good that we don't have guns in France, otherwise I'd be given free food for life by the State. I am a very non-violent person, and to be honest, I am a physical coward, very easily threatened into flight and I have NEVER punched anybody hard. Never. Ever. Ok, maybe when I was four years old.
But corner me into having to submit to your excessive noise, and inhibitions fly away and all I think about is to make you stop that attack, with zero consideration to my personal safety.
I know I am on the extreme end of the scale as far as sensitivity to noise is concerned, but I also know that the numbers of my brethren is growing fast.
And which precious metal is famously associated with silence ???
62
@nestor potkine
I don't think this constitutes extreme sensitivity. I always understood etiquette to mean that one did not inflict one's personal life and bodily habits on others, especially in spaces where others can't escape. And don't even get me started on gum . . .
10
@nestor potkine Nestor, my friend, I have had these feelings and most notably at classical recitals or dance performances. Why, oh why do people go to a live performance to make as much of a racket as possible during the show, but sit sphinx-like during the intermission? Then turn to stare at me when I give an enthusiastic ovation ... after the performance is complete.
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@nestor potkine The remark about loud Americans in Paris hits home. I go to Paris often. I cringe at our loud voices, made worse when Americans grab their cell phones. I have been in cafés when an American on the phone can be heard from one end of the (large) room to another while the French are wincing in pain. Don't understand it, can't stand it. As a digression, let me add that the other thing we do that drives Parisians crazy--yes, it's "like," verbal acne for which there seems to be no cure.
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I would recommend another work in this regard: Silence: In the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge 2017
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A great way to not be seen is to be a first commenter on one of these articles. 900 comments later, you're invisible.
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Thanks, I'm going to look that book up.
@Jay Why
No. One can always ask to view the comments from oldest to newest. To be invisible here, just get stuck in the middle of 1.7K comments!
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@Jay Why The problem is one of timing. If you wait too long you will be faced with "Comments Closed." And that is even more frustrating than being lost in the crowd. At least there you get a decent burial.