How many of us can remember the weight of quiet. The blanket of nothing that could be cast over a room. Kids, my kids at lest don’t have any sense of what quiet can actually be. They think a lack of spoken word, of voice is quiet. The absence of song, note and instrument constitutes quiet. Quiet has not ever truly existed but in today’s world of screens and networking, quiet has died… dare I say quietly.
Right now this is what I can hear sitting in my office where it is supposed to be quiet so I can work. I can hear the fans on my PC spinning two different pitches one faster than the other. I can hear the quiet vibration of my phone as it gets notifications. I can hear the hum of the water heater, the buzz of someones alarm. There is a fan in the router or a modem, not sure, and another pc fan just kicked over. Alexa just beeped at me a package has likely arrived. Hums, vibrations, bzzzzz whistles sounds all of them from technology.
When I was a kid… you heard a car, by my house a plane… kids yelling. Parents calling, or whistling. I could hear my grandfather’s whistle from a long, long ways off. When you wanted to stop and think.. its was quiet, no fans, humming clocks… ticking sure but no humming. The ambient sound is everywhere now, but happened oh so gradually. If we lose power now the lack of sound is oppressive in it’s weight. People love those weighted blankets.. well just flip the breaker to your house.
If you go into an old, church outside of services and sit… you can feel the sound of silence, physically maybe even spiritually feel the weight of it. My point is… unplug… really do it, those plugs with the blocks on them, they hum. Seriously turn it all off and power down. Grab a book.. then when it gets dark sit outside and look into the night. No movie tonight folks, no power remember.
Outside Perception 