Living between noise and silence

Around three months back I noticed that I was not hearing properly. When someone speaks, I was asking repeatedly and felt that  I should meet a doctor.   After examining my ears,  the doctor told that there is a significant formation of wax and suggested an eardrop and physical removal of wax after a week. In the next visit, the doctor removed two big lumps from both ears. I came back to the world of noise in the clinic which incidentally was in a busy street and it was peak traffic time. For a moment, it was a shock to hear all those sounds which were not audible to me for so many days. The impact of noise was such that for a moment I thought why I went for the wax removal. When we are used to extreme sounds, we seldom realise the noisy world we inhabit now and its adverse effects on us. We may need an experience like this to feel what it is like living with less noise. It was philosopher Schopenhauer who defined man as an animal which gets used to anything over a period of time.  It’s a fact that we are all citizens of a nation of noise.

A nation of noise

Noise pervades every moment of an average Indians life. Let’s begin from our roads which are the biggest playground of noise.  A lot of people feel that they move only because they honk.  We do not know how to drive without honking. Each driver feels that he has to announce everywhere that he has arrived and has an urgency,  greater than the rest.  The question why a society as a whole is addicted to so much noise is an interesting one.  Forget the roads and come to other aspects of Indian life and you see noise everywhere. Though religions have a special attachment to experiencing God in silence, most of our religious activities are linked to noise. Whether its procession, sermons extending to late nights or fireworks, our places of worship presents a God who is a friend of noise than silence. Most of such festivals are conducted with least regard to someone’s sleep or comfort. Amartya Sen wrote a book on Indians who love to argue. However, the thing is that we love to argue so loudly. We have almost perfected the art of shouting to prove a point. If anyone has any doubt on how this works,  he can watch our debates on television and parliament.  As one writer put it brilliantly, we find ourselves immersed in a culture that increasingly mistakes loudness for authority, vociferousness for voice, screaming for substance.

In short, the indicator of progress is slowly becoming the increase in noise levels in our midst. From morning to evening we live amidst great noise and we are seldom aware of it and accordingly unable to imagine a world with less noise.  Is silence so difficult an idea to conceive?   A little silence to listen to ourselves and to reflect.   In a country of noise, silence is the new luxury.

Silence, the new luxury

Blaise Pascal was a famous French mathematician who lived only for  39 years. Besides mathematician,  he was also a physicist, inventor, writer and theologian.   Towards the last years of his life, he wrote the Pensees collecting his philosophical thoughts. One line he wrote in Pensees has an everlasting appeal and ring so true for the modern man. Pascal wrote, “ All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” According to him, we are in a constant chase in a world full of noise. We dread the silence of existence and choose aimless distraction.   Pascal’s call is to spare a moment for quietness where we remain doing nothing. That time is required to listen to us. But that’s not easy for most of the people and switching off is an extremely difficult job for them.  If anyone has doubt about this tendency of human beings he can observe children. How difficult for them to stay doing nothing. Silence is a time when we deal with ourselves and that’s very important. Silence can be a healing, a time to reflect and a time when we become creative.  As American poet, Adrienne Rich said: “  impulse to create begins — often terribly and fearfully — in a tunnel of silence,”.

Finding our own South Pole

The argument against noise is not a call towards laziness or inactivity but for discovering the joy of silence in our lives.  It is the art of doing things without shouting, with less noise.  “There are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout”. Said Thoreau.  There is an idea which considers silence as a form of speech.  When we have a convincing argument we don’t need to shout.  If something is truly great, it emerges without any kind of shouting. I think I must close this post after recalling  Erling Kagge and his fabulous book. Kagge was born in Norway in 1963 and from 1990 to 1994 he travelled to south pole and north pole (  both unsupported )  and climbed Mount Everest too. Thus he became the first person to complete the three poles challenge.  Besides his expeditions,  Kagge remains a publisher and writer. In 2017, he selected a subject for deep exploration and it was silence.  The result was a book “Silence: In the age of noise.” He probed three questions. What is silence? Where is it? Why it is more important than ever? This magnificent book from one who did fascinating things in life is an irresistible invitation to the wonder called silence. While concluding his book, Kagge who has travelled to the farthest points on the surface of earth tells hat it is possible to reach silence anywhere and each of us must find our own South Pole. It can be incredibly rewarding.