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Noise is not just unwanted sound in our ears, it's the mad overdose of input to all of our senses. And it's dangerous to our health, our sanity, and our creativity. The antidote? Silence, in all its different forms. The author just spent a year trying to find it. Read More
yes - though there are no lonely landscapes
only land blessedly free from human presence. I think you'll find my blog, She Bets Her Life threaded (in the weaving sense, not the cyber sense) with yours, especially
Max Bet on Facebook and Cypher's Steak
hi mary, i'll have a look at
hi mary, i'll have a look at your blog. (is there a way to link with friendly blogs?) ... i agree with your comment, although i would add, it depends on your state of mind. if you're lonely for people, landscapes can be lonely. they shouldn't be, for a well-balanced individual, but balance is not always there when you need it. or maybe i should speak for myself only...
linking blogs and the B-word
My first sponsor used to call "balance" the B-word. She hated it...fancy that!
I'm trying to suss out how to link a post to this post. I'll be sending a new post that is incomplete. Let's see what happens. ms
i use 'balance' -- the b word
i use 'balance' -- the b word -- too much, but it's hard to get away from how important it is, to my mind. seems like maintaining equilibrium is one of the key dynamics of this universe. can't speak for the others. but if you look at the angry tone of much debate in this country, you start to realize how lack of equilibrium seems the norm in that sphere. then you have to wonder why: cui bono? my answer to that is, the network of big, inhuman organizations that run not just this country but the entire planet.
linking
I linked Mystery Tramp: the deal to your blog - let's see if it works. I keep thinking I know your name...did you attend University of Rochester or the MFA program at U. of Az.? ms
Perfect Silence
Perfect Silence: October 6th, 2009, Minneapolis, Minnesota; the HHH Metrodome, 54,088 fans, two baseball teams, regular season game 163, bottom of the 12th, Carlos Gomez rounding third base...
Total Noise: December 11th, 2002, Washington, DC, the court room of the Supreme Court, oral arguments for Virginia v. Black; deciding whether KKK members burning a 30 foot cross in a farm field is an threatening activity; 7 supreme court justices indicate that the law criminalizing cross-burning is unconstitutional; Justice Thomas--conservative, never asks questions during oral argument, totally against affirmative action programs for minorities, the only black justice on the supreme court, visibly disturbed--interrupts counsel, "Mr. Dreeben, aren't you understating the... the effects of... of the burning cross? ... that we had almost 100 years of lynching and activity in the South by the Knights of Camellia and... and the Ku Klux Klan, and this was a reign of terror and the cross was a symbol of that reign of terror... isn't that significantly greater than intimidation or a threat? My fear is, Mr. Dreeben, that you're actually understating the symbolism on... of and the effect of the cross, the burning cross. I... I indicated, I think, in the Ohio case that the cross was not a religious symbol and that it has... it was intended to have a virulent effect. And I... I think that what you're attempting to do is to fit this into our jurisprudence rather than stating more clearly what the cross was intended to accomplish and, indeed, that it is unlike any symbol in our society."
wish i'd been at the first
wish i'd been at the first one. not the second. argh...
Perfect Silence
Perfect Silence: October 6th, 2009, Minneapolis, Minnesota; the HHH Metrodome, 54,088 fans, two baseball teams, regular season game 163, bottom of the 12th, Carlos Gomez rounding third base...
Total Noise: December 11th, 2002, Washington, DC, the court room of the Supreme Court, oral arguments for Virginia v. Black; deciding whether KKK members burning a 30 foot cross in a farm field is an threatening activity; 7 supreme court justices indicate that the law criminalizing cross-burning is unconstitutional; Justice Thomas--conservative, never asks questions during oral argument, totally against affirmative action programs for minorities, the only black justice on the supreme court, visibly disturbed--interrupts counsel, "Mr. Dreeben, aren't you understating the... the effects of... of the burning cross? ... that we had almost 100 years of lynching and activity in the South by the Knights of Camellia and... and the Ku Klux Klan, and this was a reign of terror and the cross was a symbol of that reign of terror... isn't that significantly greater than intimidation or a threat? My fear is, Mr. Dreeben, that you're actually understating the symbolism on... of and the effect of the cross, the burning cross. I... I indicated, I think, in the Ohio case that the cross was not a religious symbol and that it has... it was intended to have a virulent effect. And I... I think that what you're attempting to do is to fit this into our jurisprudence rather than stating more clearly what the cross was intended to accomplish and, indeed, that it is unlike any symbol in our society."
You Don't Have to Go Far to Find Silence
I don't mean to sound dreamy, hippie-ish, delusional or fundamentalist... but there is absolute silence inside you.
The "basic you" is silent. By "basic you" I mean the core of your being, who you REALLY are.
To understand the "basic you", next time you think something, try and find the answer to the question, "To whom did that thought occur?"
If you pursue this path of inquiry, you will ultimately find that you are a pure witness to your thoughts and in a way apart from them.... and therefore absolutely silent.
i agree. but it's a discovery
i agree. but it's a discovery everyone has to make for his/her/self.
True. Guides and guide books
True. Guides and guide books abound, but ultimately the individual has to do the remaining distance.
I say "remaining" because everyone is already at a varying point on the road to the discovery. Taking that further, I tend to believe, based on the diversity of nature that I observe, that a few will be born with the discovery made.
The Inner Silence
What you say is important and a real live problem for most. But it is quite difficult to be away from all of this. I too have faced this problem and i possibly found a way out. i found that it is a problem of human choice. If i choose to react to the noise i become sick, stressed, irritated. And that leads to other chronic or long term diseases. Hence my response to the noise causes the problem. Therefore i decided that i would be aware of all the noises (instead of cutting it off by involuntary use of mental filters -- which might in turn lead to hearing problems in later years) and decide whether i respond or not and in what manner i respond to a particular input. i now have a choice. i found it practical and it works. However, it might need some amount of mental practice before one can master it. But it is easier than it sounds. i started practicing this under any setting -- office, home, streets, while driving, etc... and soon achieved the desired goal. i feel it is the internal silence that is important not the external silence. Once in a while an environment of external silence is pleasing but that is not the real world we generally live in.
Agreed. "Once in a while an
Agreed. "Once in a while an environment of external silence is pleasing but that is not the real world we live in."
that depends, perhaps, on how
that depends, perhaps, on how much you seek it out. if you (and others) can achieve a degree of necessary silence in your personal environment, doesn't that become part of the real world--yours, anyway?
i agree--that is what the
i agree--that is what the next blog on this subject will be about, at least in part. there are several steps, i think, to living better around the focus of noise/silence. the first is being aware of the problem (for example, am i constantly irritable because i am working in a room with distracting sounds, and trying to cope with too many probems at once?) the second is seeking to control the data flowing in, aurally and otherwise: use a different room. take more frequent breaks. take time after work when you consciously limit data, for example by relaxing on the couch without tv, radio, internet, or even conversation. (meditation can be a good tool here.) the third is consciously crafting the environment you want. aurally, that is known as building your soundscape. at work you can ask for a desk that is distant from airco, tv, coffee station etc. you can use headphones, earplugs. then you start to choose the input you want, in order to improve your life. take a walk and listen to birds, or kids in the playground. buy a cd of music that makes you happy and or calm. start to listen to all the sounds in your life and analyze them. if you listen hard you find they tend to work on different frequencies and interact in interesting ways. these are all external tools, as you point out, while the real goal is internal silence, but they work to that end. when you can control your environment better, you grow calmer, more able to accept and parse the truly crucial information. the security and respite this affords you bring time in which to reflect on internal balance (the 'b' word, as another commentator said) and adjust that too.
Achieving inner silence and peace of mind
Thank you. These are all very interesting methods to achieve the needed peace of mind, achieving silence and keeping the mind active and dynamic at the same time. Look forward to you next series of blogs.
hi dibyendu, you're most
hi dibyendu, you're most welcome. rereading my response, though (and thinking back to another), i realize i don't want to emphasize the control aspect too much. control over the immediate environment is a factor, of course, as described above. but the real value of silence lies in opening up to all input, which is the antithesis of control. once you filter what's coming in, you are not opening up, but closing off. (lots of room for discussion on this topic, in relation to how perception works, but that's for another time.) this filtering effect is the basis of one objection i have to google and other internet search engines: you essentially have to know the answer in order to ask the question. much better to roam around a library's stacks, picking up books in your general field of interest.
(off-subject alarm rings here)
Silence
George,yes the idea of opening up is great. In the gap between two noises or sound there is silence. The mind might be trained to pick up on those moments of silence to achieve inner silence. Example -- listening to drums.
There is no information overload - only failure to filter
Aside of a time consuming and inconsistent "get organized" methods there are powerful tools that intelligently automate information filtering.
Summarization is one of such technologies. It flashes out the keywords and the key sentences to let user instantly know if the information is of value. A simple filtering can screen out information that we do not wish to see and retain only information that is of value.
Read less..only the essence and learn more.
Automation offers - adaptive filtering - much more value than manual methods. There are summarization and filtering tools!!! Cheers.
Henry
www.contextdiscovery.com
hi henry, interesting
hi henry, interesting comment. can you post the trade names of such (i assume) software?
i would make the comment that (a) even with automated filtering, the more 'data smog' there is, the more energy will have to be consumed filtering it and (b) it's not always a good idea to delegate filtering to machines of whatever stripe. filtering is not a janitorial function, it is part and parcel of the perception process and possibly just as vital as signal reception itself. think of all the articles or books you've read where the really interesting information (for you at least) was hidden near the end. automated filtering in that case would probably have dumped the baby with the bathwater.
thx for your post. rock on
gf
I'd have to say that the
I'd have to say that the author's realization is not really new; shutting off the outside world is an everyday pursuit sought by millions of people. This is why we hop an motorcycle and seek out quiet country roads, launch the boat and embrace the wide open ocean, take to the skies in a private plane or don scuba gear and descend into the depths.
These are a few of the many forms of escaping the 'noise' of the modern world. I don't think that absolute silence is necessary to free oneself of the noisy modern world. There has always been a lot of auditory input in the lives of humans from the dawn of mankind, however if some find that complete silence is the only way to find peace, I would think that this condition is not the norm and qualifies more as extremism in the pursuit of an uncluttered mind.
Motorcycles and Planes - The Noisiest Everyday Machines
Ironically, anonymous says that millions of people hop on motorcycles, and take to boats, and planes to escape the noise of the modern world.
In my study to find quiet places and silence, I discovered that the intruders to silence even in the most out of the way rural areas were always aircraft flying overhead, usually a small plane flying a few thousand feet overhead. (Jets fly tens of thousands of feet high and make less of a sound impact. although still disturbing when trying to find quiet places.)
At my rural home the sound invaders are motorcycles, almost always with illegally modified exhaust systems making them louder than a semi-truck. I also live a mile from a river and can easily hear boats roar up the river at high speed.
We all need to listen carefully to the sounds in our environment and try to quiet our world as much as possible. As a pilot, I'm in a quandry over the sonic footpath my plane makes flying 2000 feet over the countryside. Yes it's fun, but until you really listen, the sounds of motors all around us numb us into submission.
My explorations in finding quiet places: http://sites.google.com/site/donbrowne/quiet
to paraphrase Barry Goldwater
to paraphrase Barry Goldwater, "extremism in the pursuit of an uncluttered mind is no vice."
thx for your post
Senses
The silence is useful provided one learns how to withdraw ones senses all 10 of them, which is definitely frightening to most.
yes, it's scary because
yes, it's scary because without outside noise only you are left, and i think most people's 'you,' or 'i,' is badly damaged by the society we live in, which trains them to live in constant insecurity--does not train them to listen to and trust themselves.
that is why mystics are both so (apparently) odd and so respected; because they had the security, and the guts, to undergo total silence and listen to what came out of it. unfortunately, not a few of them were also at least partially crazy; i'd say jesus and mohammed, for starters, were borderline schizo. but the process is a worthy one, and i think most people instinctively realize that.
Try buddhist meditation
Hi, try buddhist meditation by joining a retreat. It's one of the most wonderful silence ive ever experienced. The retreat should be in a place far from the crowd. It's like taking a rest from outward distraction and having an inward discoveries. Very refreshing, but get a suitable teacher. It can be a monk, nun or laymen.
nice article. very inspiring.
Nowhere except communicating with self
Nowhere is a quiet place to be physically perfect in this world.
However, if we think about the purpose or reason for that, there may be one way to get there.
That is to communicate with ourselves. If so, even though there are any kinds of noises, we can't recognize them or don't significantly care about them.
Therefore, It is more important to know and find how to communicate with self than to find any perfectly quiet place in the world.
hi, thanks for the comment. i
hi, thanks for the comment.
i would agree with you--if you read my book, you'll find that it ends with roughly that process--but i'd also say that finding how to communicate with yourself can be a tough job and part of it involves dealing with the noise, both physical and psychological, that tends to get in the way of listening. hence the search for at least a relative silence.
best
gf
hi, thanks for the comment. i
hi, thanks for the comment.
i would agree with you--if you read my book, you'll find that it ends with roughly that process--but i'd also say that finding how to communicate with yourself can be a tough job and part of it involves dealing with the noise, both physical and psychological, that tends to get in the way of listening. hence the search for at least a relative silence.
best
gf
Not that I don't totally
Not that I don't totally agree that silence is amazing for the psyche ...I swear I just read a study that said low level white noise/background noise helps people concentrate (I used it to prove to my co-workers what I know to be true for me--I focus on one task much better when I have tv/music in the background. I don't flit from thing to thing, because any need to wander takes me momentarily to the tv/noise and then right back to my work at hand, instead of to a web page or chat with a co-worker or etc, etc). I am going to have to find it.
The best place for silence away from humans is nature (though the wild world is far from silent!). We should work to protect the last truly wild places before every inch is covered in ORV trails or fully roaded national parks. Support your local Wilderness campaigns! :)
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