The Sounds of Silence

Is silence simply the lack of noise?

Under the heading of "More of What This Country Needs" I would add that we need more silence. The hum of "civilization" is no longer a hum. Instead, it's become a long and painfully loud crescendo with no end in sight. It's gotten to the point where we can't hear ourselves think. In a sense we have lost ourselves in the din.

The hum of civilization isn't just that which we can measure in decibels, it's all 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 “noise” wanting our attention. We rush from place to place and from activity to activity. It's like being pecked to death by chickens.

Alarm clocks, family, jobs, friends, Facebook updates, You tube, email, Television, smart phones, music. Those are only a few things screaming for our attention. Social media was already loud in 2016, today it’s a habit. Some say a dangerous habit. Doomscolling, the habit of continuously scrolling through bad news on a phone or computer, even though it makes you feel anxious, sad, or overwhelmed. Curiosity, fear and a little hope drive you to turn the page looking for something that never comes. You hope for some clarity or control but it all just adds to the noise.

Politics has become another source of unpleasant noise, perhaps more so this year than any year I can remember. It’s easy to lose yourself among all those things competing for your attention. Silence can be thought of as political. We would all like to hear more silence and fewer sound bites. In our society shouting gets you clicks leaving complexity and nuance behind. A simple quiet space is essential not just personally but democratically. Soundbites are little more than mini versions of word salad. We need less noise and more substance from our politicians. Political debates are no longer debates...they are junior high school shouting matches, it's pathetic. I've seen enough of those to last me until I die. Meaningless noise.

We are seldom left alone to just think, daydream, and figure out who we are and how we fit into this whole creation.

We require 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 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 constant traffic noise. 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. We probably do that with much of the noise we are suffering through but what this country needs is less noise.

The memories of childhood and youth are much quieter than today. Is that my imagination? I can still find that sort of peaceful silence although it requires distancing myself from civilization a bit. My way of distancing myself is nature. Get out of town, away from the computer, leave my cell phone in the car and take a hike. We’ve got some good local trails nearby, but the places that really calm me and eliminate the frantic atmosphere are the National Parks I’ve visited over the past 25 years. I often find myself just standing, absorbing the peace and feeling the stress drain away. It isn’t that those places lack sound. They are full of sound. The sound of a soft breeze slowly building beautiful white sand dunes, the calls of a cactus wren, Gila woodpecker, or curved bill trasher as you walk along a trail in Saguaro National Park. Even the sound of the falling waters of Yosemite Creek dropping 2400 feet can be hypnotizing. At Sequoya National Park the upper alpine meadows are a riot of floral color through July and the sounds are those of bees and hummingbirds. An escape provided by both eyes and ears.

In 1964 Simon & Garfunkel presented a different idea of silence. They seemed to sense where we were heading toward a world of constant schizophrenic noise. A world where people speak without connection, where we hear but miss the meaning. A place where we have grown so accustomed to the noise we have forgotten how to hear.

“And in the naked light I saw / Ten thousand people, maybe more / People talking without speaking / People hearing without listening / People writing songs that voices never share / No one dared / Disturb the sound of silence” Simon & Garfunkel Sounds of Silence 1964

If that doesn’t sound like social media today, then I clearly don’t understand what I’m reading on those platforms. The song continues with what sounds like a warning.

“Fools said I, you do not know, Silence like a cancer grows…But my words like silent raindrops fell echoed in the wells of silence…” Simon & Garfunkel Sounds of Silence 1964

While that sounds like they believe silence is something to be avoided, I believe they sang not about the absence of noise but the absence of understanding. I’ve described silence as the absence of noise that prevents us from hearing those things that can make life meaningful. Simon and Garfunkel described a silence created by the inability of people to communicate. I think of my type of silence being one that can refresh, while the other silence is suffocating. The kind of silence I’ve described isn’t always easy to find but I know it’s out there, I’ve found it in many places.

Maybe that’s why, as I sit here tonight with the traffic murmuring on the wet street below, I know what I need: to clear out some of the noise. To lace up my shoes, grab the leash, and head out into the quiet wet night. Just me, the dog, and the cool air. No updates, no alerts, no headlines. Just the kind of silence that listens back.

All photos are the author’s.