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QUIET!
It's Saturday morning. I want to sleep. It's
been a rough week and all I want is a few extra hours of rest. But
Saturday morning is the day my neighbor upstairs cleans house. She
doesn't just clean house...she cleans house to music...very loud music
with a heavy bass that throbs through the ceiling. I give up and join
the community of noise pollution. I turn on the TV to cover up her
noise while I wake up, have my coffee and write.
It is almost as though, as a culture, we are afraid of quiet. We plug
into our iPods, we turn on the television, we talk loudly, we gather
where there is loud music. I have a friend who cannot stand being where
it is quiet and falls asleep only when the television is on all night.
My neighbor cannot have a girlfriend over without cranking up the
stereo: he seems inordinately fond of Paul Simon's Graceland.
Our cities are noisy. A few years ago I was in New York City. There is
a tremendous energy in NYC. And there is also tremendous noise. The
traffic is a constant background noise. From the ground itself the
noise of the subways rattles up into the night. Sirens signal
emergency, and trash collection is a loud activity. Each morning I was
awakened by the sound of shattering glass as the trash collectors ground
the bottles in their trucks.
Last week the office erupted into a veritable cacophony of chatter. The
group on the other side of the partition kept getting louder and
louder. On the other side the women were chattering about what they
were going to do that night at the concert or at the bars after work. I
was working on a relatively difficult problem and the person next to me
was trying to take a corporate-mandated test while a third was trying to
hear on the telephone. Concentration was impossible until I shouted
out, “Hey, Guys!”
Less than three years ago I could not sleep at night. I had moved from
one neighborhood where the night was regularly shattered by sirens and
traffic was always on the move to a neighborhood where there is only a
occasional siren (the police here use only their lights) when the
emergency rescue team rushes out and after about 10 PM the traffic
outside my door dwindles to only a car or two rushing out to the island.
Even if you have been out in the woods, you know that it is not quiet
even miles from “civilization.” For those of us old enough to remember
Happy Days there was one incredibly humorous scene when Fonzie
was out in the woods and the noises irritated him. All it took was the
Fonz's “Heeeyyy!” and all the creatures of the woods were
immediately silent. But we take our “music” even out into the woods and
crank up the volume...no bear would ever come near. I was up at Lake
Tenaya, nearly 10,000 feet high, close to the eastern entrance to
Yosemite. It is surrounded by pines. A riot of wildflowers can be seen
in the meadows. I sloshed through the icy water to a table away from
all others, sheltered but with a spectacular view of the lake and
meadows. But another group had the same idea, only they had a boom box
that echoed across the placid lake. I left for a quieter place in the
meadows.
So, what is it about us that we can't stand quiet? I shudder to think
what would happen if we were suddenly deprived of all that makes noise
in our society. What would happen if we had to face ourselves in the
quiet of the night? It is in the quiet of the middle night when I write
best. It is in the silence of the woods where I can get perspective on
my problems. My favorite time is when the snow falls and muffles all
sound, before the snow plows get out, before people start to hazard
venturing out, when I can hear my heartbeat in my ears.
Why is it that we are so afraid of quiet?
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