Silence is a Lost Art

              

      I'm sitting on the back deck. This is not an uncommon place to find me; my favorite mug full of ice water, my trusty laptop Lord Pondicherry, and lazy Mr. Tucket keeping me company with his contented snoring in the sunshine. My ear buds are in, but abnormally, they are silent. The birds are chirping in the trees and my brother is raking leaves on the lower porch, that delicious sound of the prongs hitting the concrete coming in sporadic rhythm.

     For a rare half minute, there was no one on the road by our house. You see, we live next to a fairly busy stretch of a 2-lane road, and a mere common ground away from the highway. There are always cars going past with a low whoosh, children coming home from school, couples walking, the same beagle who breaks out semi-monthly, sniffing her way dangerously close to the traffic.

     But for half a minute, there was no noise but the afternoon sounds of nature. (As much nature as we get in suburbia.) And it was beautiful. I enjoy drinking in those few seconds of quiet, wishing they would last forever. Wishing I lived five miles away from everyone and had ten or so dogs snoring around me as I write, healthy sweat dripping down my face as I sit in the sunshine, my body strong from days of outdoor work.

     This is reality, though. And the cars start racing past again. 

     Silence is a lost art. We live in a very loud culture. Entertainment is at the tip of our fingers every single second of the day. We can listen to music, watch movies, chat, talk on the phone, drive. Communication is noisy. Entertainment is noisy. Work is noisy. Play is noisy. Life is noisy.

     Just when I think I have a moment of silence, the phone rings. The dog barks. The workmen next-door start their everlasting banging. The floors creak when I walk. The sink drains. The CD skips. The organ in the front room emits its continual humming. The dishwasher churns.

     The phone rings.

     The dog barks.

     I read somewhere that NASA made a room that was 99% percent sound proof. I say kudos. The world needs more silence, less distraction. More time to think, less time to talk. More time to focus, less time to be entertained.

     Apparently, if you were to stay in this room for any length of time, you would go crazy.  Your mind begins to make up noises that don't exist. You hear things that aren't there. Our brains and bodies are tuned to want noise.

     But I believe they're also tuned to need silence. To be quiet. To cut all this extra distraction and actually realize how soothing it is to be silent and be still.

     Silence in a delicacy these days that a lot of people would give a lot to have. We're so annoyingly noisy all the time. Everything we do is noisy. And that's okay, to some extent. Noise is a beautiful part of life.

     But there can be too much of a good thing.

     And amid the noise, regarldess of it being “good noise,” or “bad noise,” we're losing silence, which is the art of not making any noise at all. 

     Mr. Tucket woke up and is hanging his head pitifully through the banisters. The blender's going in the kitchen behind me. Storm clouds are rumbling in the distance. Life is moving. The world is turning. Progress is being made. And that's okay.

     Sometimes I just wonder if we really have to be so noisy in the process.