Sound and Fury

One of the reasons I often opt for silence over music---or other distraction---is my growing awareness that the lifestyle of modern techno-industrial societies is unnatural at best and undesirable in its effects on us as social beings and thinking individuals.

Before electronics, people didn't have instant access to entertainment. When they had the time, they either entertained themselves or attended live performances; which means they spent more of their day in relative silence, except for the background sounds of on-going life and work. Unlike today, they could actually hear themselves think.

Today, people spend almost every waking moment in a state of mental distraction, mostly due to the auricular saturation of our popular culture. We wake-up to the alarm clock radio; watch TV as we get ready for work; listen to the radio en route to work and sometimes during work and come home to more TV. And now we have i-pods that are so small and convenient that they can be listened to literally anywhere, hands-free---further alienating ourselves from the outside world even while we're ostensibly interacting with it.

The over-accessibilty of music and discourse through digital media such as i-pods and cellphones has made even important alone-time---when we should be reflecting on our lives---full of banter and music.

With all that music and mindless chatter competing for our attention, how much of the waking day is spent actually contemplating? Can people be in touch with themselves while in a state of constant distraction? And can people really know themselves if they never spend adequate time reflecting on things without the intrusive distraction of popular culture? And could it be that people are generally not mindful of others and their attention span is that of an over-stimulated toddler as a result of sensory over-indulgence?

We are saturated to distraction by the convenience of radio and TV and i-pods and cellphones and computers. And often, people have two or more of them going at the same time. And as the world outside gets crazier, people retreat even further into their electronic fantasy worlds which makes external reality that much less comprehensible---a vicous cycle.

How ironic, that, with the improvement of communications and instant accessibility to everyone else, communication has become less genuine. The more moments we have access to people who are somewhere else, the less time we spend in-the-moment where we're at. And as a result of the internet, we have more friends, but, less genuine relationships.

We live in an artificial culture that produces empty people---a digital dystopia which will only get worse and the only mental and emotional sanctuary is through a healthy amount of silent solitude. There is nothing to fear from hearing our own thoughts and exploring the recesses of our being. Movies and entertainment are not an escape, they're a delay---reality on-hold. The only way to fill the void in our souls is first to allow ourselves to approach it and then embrace it. It is more revealing and useful than anything we put into our ears.

"Silence is Golden" isn't just a cliche`.