A few loud thoughts on silence.

I want you to try something. I want you to turn off every source of noise you can control for the next five minutes. Watch a clock, so long as it doesn't tick, and turn off everything that makes a noise you can hear. Don't talk to yourself, don't tap nervously on anything, just sit there and watch the clock for five minutes, silent. Breathe as quietly as possible.

Keep reading when you're done.

Now, if you're anything like me, those first couple minutes were hard. Just sitting here, with my computer on my lap, I wanted to *do* something. I mean, five minutes, man! I could nuked a slice of pizza, or taken a drink of water, or been productive.

But by the end of the five minutes, my heart rate had gone down a bit, and my mind was a little less spun up (I generally only write when I'm amped up for some reason), and even though I wasn't really anxious, I'm a little calmer than I was five minutes ago.

Our world is very loud. It's absolutely full of noise. I heard a couple cars go past, and my computer was whirring, and my body, it turns out, creaks like a factory full of unoiled hinges. And I have some tinnitus. Yay.

But in the silence, there's a lot more than just an absence of noice. It occurs to me that in a society that doesn't sleep, in a place where the lights never go out, and the noise never stops, that I think we're losing our ability to turn ourselves off because nothing ever turns off.

Now, I'm not going to espouse taking more vacations, or longer breaks at work, or turn this into some navel-gazing quest for spirituality, but at some point, couldn't we all use a little time to just sit, for a couple minutes, in silence, and turn the world down a couple decibels?

I know people that I can talk with for hours. And that's good. And there are songs and pieces of music that I can listen to all day long. That is also good, it helps me get through my day. And I'm ok with not talking myself, there's certainly a value in listening to others.

Noise, in a philosophical sense, provides distractions from what's around us. I listen to music during shop class because it helps me pass the time, by distracting me from what's around me, and allowing me to focus on what I need done. It's a filter, and all filters have a good use at times.

But I think society has lost a certain level of comfort with a lack of noise. We need to be comfortable with silence, because when we're silent, the first thing that makes us uncomfortable is ourselves. It's hard to be alone with your thoughts.

It's also pretty hard to be silent around other people. Ever been in a group of 5-10 people and had the conversation get stpped artificially? Do you notice how quickly someone starts talking just to fill the noise?

I don't really have a stunning and cogent point to make. But this world is loud, and I think sometimes, I silence.

Maybe you do, too.