The benefit of silence

NEB

New member
Well not silence exactly, but peace and quiet.

Has anyone noticed just how intense life has become over the last 20 years. It's so fast paced and we're bombarded constantly with images and noise. Advertisers all competing for our attention, programs vieing for us to 'make that phone call' and these reality TV programs are always so incredibly loud.

Radio is no better with constant noise and chatter going on oblivious to whether you happen to be listening or not.

Outside the house it's awash with over stimulus and demands on time and attention and in the home is no better among a busy family, all with so many things that they need to do. Kids with their activities, running in and out constantly (with you in tow as duty driver). Always in a rush to be here or there to pick up this person, drop that one, play for this service, run that practice or rehersal.

It's constant bombardment on the senses and there's no let-up.

How much benefit those moments of peace and quiet prove to be. Allowing our own thoughts to have room to breathe, even if we're too tired for those thoughts to be any other than mental sighs of relief.

Sometimes it can get to the stage where we're so acclimatised to the general din that when quiet comes along it becomes deafening in the very absense of such a din.

Such a strange world we live in. Could this be the definition of lunacy?
 
Muza

Muza

New member
Hi Neb, I have been noticing a lot of that, and sometimes find myself having similar thoughts while enjoying the quiet time to myself. I never find that silence deafening or unbearable, I quite enjoy it. On the other hand, the first thing I do when get up, or come home, or get to work is turn something on, be that radio, tv or whatever, I guess because we are so used to noise and it seems boring and lifeless without it.

the best thing to balance those out are the walks, alone, late in the evening or early in the morning - beach, forest, somewhere natural - its just a great balance between silence and those soft natural noises, whispered by Mother Nature, capable of bringing me back to sanity..............
 

NEB

New member
Aye - the sounds of the natural world. The gentle breeze rustling in the leaves of the nearest tree, the spring bubbling away as the water runs by. Actually I really love going for nice walks and go down to the various nature reserves as often as I can to just chill.

Sadly not often enough these days. Life is way too busy for that.
 
Krummhorn

Krummhorn

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It's true what is happening to our lives - after many years of raising kids and going everywhere all the time, it's sometimes difficult to slow down in later years. I enjoy my quiet time at home during the daytime now since taking early retirement from my 40+ hour a week job ... seldom watch network or cable television anyway except in the evenings, and then not every night, mainly because the actual program I am watching constantly interrupts the commercials ... lol !!

It took almost a year for me to slow down after leaving that 40+ hour weekly job ... now I am perfectly content at just spending the entire day at home. My son is out of the house (and in another state attending a college), my GF works fulltime, and I am in charge of cooking dinner most every day.

The world as a whole, needs to slow down ... less emphasis on doing something just for the sake of doing something ... being busy all the time leads to great amounts of stress which only lines the pockets of psychologists and others in the medical profession. That's lunacy that we all can prevent by just slowing down - just taking a half day each week is a start in the right direction.
 

Daniel Palmer

New member
It's amazing how many young people round here seem to need their MP3 players at all costs. It's as if they need to be 'entertained' round the clock - where's the time for reflection?

And don't get me started about hearing people's earpieces on public transport...
 

NEB

New member
Gawd Daniel! - you're not wrong. the phones seem to be getting in on the act as well. It's like the companies are steadily brainwashing them all to be noise junkies. (noise being the best *polite* description of the garbage they call music these days)
 
Muza

Muza

New member
I could not agree with you guys more! Young people, it seems like, dont care about anything else but their ipods/phones. They walk, and they dont see anything; they hear sounds, but they cant really hear/listen - no wonder we are getting dumber and dumber as a nation (you'd think it would be the other way around, but noooo). As Daniel said, where's the time for reflection, for deliberation, for listening to self for a change.....
 
Muza

Muza

New member
never mind philosophical questions, at least just thinking about something, anything! but, yeah, in a nut shell, we are on the same page...
 

NEB

New member
Now that has cracked me up - think about somehing .. .. Anything!!!!!!!!

You are soo funny. :)
 
Krummhorn

Krummhorn

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Muza said:
I could not agree with you guys more! Young people, it seems like, dont care about anything else but their ipods/phones. They walk, and they dont see anything; they hear sounds, but they cant really hear/listen - no wonder we are getting dumber and dumber as a nation (you'd think it would be the other way around, but noooo). As Daniel said, where's the time for reflection, for deliberation, for listening to self for a change.....
Click to expand...

Spot On, Muza ...
But it's not only the young people with mobile phones - seems everyone is striving for attention when their phone rings ... they let it ring 5 or 6 times before answering it in public, and at that on the loudest ring available - yeesh! Ok, I have a mobile phone too, but I keep mine on vibrate when out in public and also wear a bluetooth ear thingy, so the only one who can hear my phone ring is me.

Then there are the 10 to 12 year olds with mobile phones in the malls - talking as loud as they can so as to be noticed. And of course, they are not paying any attention to anything else around them, and trying all the wrong ways to appear and look "cool" ... yah, we are becoming dumber and dumber as a nation. Shoot, when I was their age, we didn't have mobile phones, nor even cassette tapes, and we got along just fine in society, probably better than we do today.

Parents giving their kids cell phones just so they don't have to take the real responsibility of really knowing where their kids are - in those cases I refer to the mobile phone as an "electronic leash" ... that is not responsible nor proper parenting, at least, imho.
 

NEB

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There may be a cultural gulf between the states and various European countries, but in some respects the problems are right across the western world. Can't speak for the east.
 
Krummhorn

Krummhorn

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rojo said:
Well, I'm a dinosaur; I don't even own a cellphone! :grin:
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That's quite commendable, Rojo :tiphat:
Maybe there's a lesson to be learned there for the rest of us ... If I didn't have family spread out across the nation, I wouldn't bother with mobile phones either. So, I :clap: :clap: you for having the courage to live without one of these contraptions.

They do give me a warm fuzzy on long trips, just for the 'security' aspect ... but I'm not a 'chatty cathy' on it and don't have to be talking to someone 24/7 ... and I don't give the number out to just anyone ... can't afford the 79 cents a minute rate if I go over the alloted air time during the day.
 

toejamfootball

New member
Daniel Palmer said:
It's amazing how many young people round here seem to need their MP3 players at all costs. It's as if they need to be 'entertained' round the clock - where's the time for reflection?

And don't get me started about hearing people's earpieces on public transport...
Click to expand...

I find personally that I reflect the best listening to music I love, I can drown everything out but the music and my thoughts. But I know what you mean.. I don't think most of them are doing the same.

I agree, everyone is so busy doing "something" nobody is really stepping back and taking a look at how the world really is. Well except us I guess? :eek:

I would through in that the majority of people take everything way too seriously, which just adds to the stress of always doing something.
 
Mahlon

Mahlon

New member
on a less serious note, I'm sure bach had a handful dealing with the 20 or so kids that he had throughout his life! as well as being an arithmetic teacher to make money and having to DIscipline his roudy choris kids, maybe things aren't so different these days? on top of that he somehow figured in the time to compose some of the greatest masterpieces ever penned by man, talk about multi-tasking! Although he probabally learned to shut himselfaway from the jumbled world while composing and enter into the ethereal realm of the music at hand, atleast thats what I try to do, Its pretty tough when both your parents work at home!, my dads a psychiatrist, so theres some pretty interesting characters around my house, and my moms a BEginner Violin teacher, talk about trying to survive, on top of that I have the most undisciplined dogs in the universe, my little one, who thinks hes the king of the world, even barks at me when he's near my dad! (maybe a protection thing) and I've known him for 10 years!!!! ah the respite of silence :)
 
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