Turn off the noise!

The evidence is everywhere. People of all ages plugged into IPods and texting on phones — even while walking with and talking to other people. Other pocket gadgets invading all manner of privacy. Books, magazines and IPads passing time on planes, trains and automobiles. Sensational headlines and talk-show natter fueling our intellect and directing our moods and perceptions. Small-screen viewing manipulating our free time. Social media substituting for face-to-face communications, and blogs serving as outlets for opinions and gripes. Advertising with its messages of what we need, how we should act, what we should do, where we are going wrong, and how to fix everything to perfection.

So many vehicles. So much noise.

Yeah, I know. Nothing personal. Just a sign of the times. So easy to turn on the noise, to fill our heads with other people’s stuff, to cut ourselves off from the world outside and the people who love us, to make the mistake that noise is more important than our own thinking, our own beliefs, our own personalities, our own ideas and ambitions.

I should know. My “noise of choice” is chatter. Other people’s chatter, whether delivered by television characters, radio personalities and performers; driven by conversations across the ether, printed opinions and random speculations; facebooked via friends and “friends”; and professed in anticipation of a response (i.e., me writing in this blog that apparently no one ever reads).

I happily embrace my “noise of choice” because, for the most part, it serves as a tool for my many projects. However, I know that if I’m not careful, it can also take up way too much time and prove to be a huge mental and emotional distraction.

When noise overwhelms us, it blocks us out of the equation. And I sometimes wonder if that block, that disconnect, plays a role in the state of things today ... like frustrated, anxious, angry and lashing-out behaviour, reliance on or certainly a preference for foul language to convey emotions, petty fights over the smallest and silliest things, non-communicative and anti-social thinking, a fractured view of who we are and what our value is, and an increased susceptibility to being bullied and doing the bullying.

Just thinking out loud here, but it was a strong enough consideration that I decided to turn off the noise for a while, to take a break from the onslaught of information, to opt for silence, and to clear the way for my own logic, awareness, sense of self, and understanding of my own potential to rise to the fore, unimpeded by short-term stuff that, once it’s run it’s course, no longer seems to matter in the overall scheme of things.

What I realised was that (a) it never did matter in the overall scheme of things, and (b) I really liked what the lack of noise begot.

No, not quite ready to completely shush all my noise, but I am wondering how you might feel and what you might achieve if you shushed yours for a while.