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Silence Is Golden - Enjoy It



Forget your headphones, earbuds, AirPods! That's right, I said it and it is my advice today. I am known to be listening to talk radio all day all the time if I'm not otherwise working or out socializing and I love to always be informed, but lately, I have tuned out the background noise - at least for a part of my day. I recently found that having continuous focussed noise in your ears is like looking directly in the sun for long periods, leaving you partially blind. With the music, radio, and podcasts consistently battering your eardrums leaves you mentally blind (I don't mean deaf) in a way. I mean desensitized to natural noise outside the speakers enveloping your ears. I also think it can drain you mentally especially if you are listening to news or talk radio, making you analyze what you are hearing and making subconscious decisions on every topic. I just decided to have parts of my day silent to ease to noise in my head. 

I went for a walk last week and forgot my earbuds, which I didn't go back to pick up, and decided to enjoy the sounds around the park instead of tuning them out. What a great decision that was with the white noise not being people yammering on about political strife all over the world. I just heard nature (with a bit of traffic in the background). Without the noise-cancelling headphones, I paid more attention to my surroundings rather than drowning all of it out. I saw and heard the sea lions frolicking in the harbour, tiny chickadees in the bush, and soaring eagles calling out above me. I heard the props of a harbour seaplane passing over the park just before landing in the harbour, seemingly so close I could reach it. These simple pleasures we used to enjoy regularly have all been forgotten as technology takes over humanity, fooling us all into believing silence is not all that it's cracked up to be. 

Flipping through our social media, reading news, and listening to stuff on our mobile phones has changed society so much, just stopping for a minute and listening to "nothing" is unheard of. Wherever I go people have stuff shoved on or in their ears, tuning out the world and tuning in anything but. Eyes planted on their screens, ignoring whatever is going on in front of them. On the bus, in restaurants, in shopping malls, at local pubs - everyone is plugged in and tuned out. Once I told one of my employees they couldn't wear their AirPods while they were working, and they said they make them hear better, going on about the technology of the product and how it can be set to focus on certain things. I was wondering if they just needed hearing aids since that was the exact purpose of them. A likely excuse to try to keep wearing them.

Everyone agrees that distracted driving is dangerous, with mobile phones being one of the main causes of motor vehicle accidents today. More and more I see distracted pedestrians, walking into traffic, tripping while texting, and bumping into others while their heads are in their cell phones. I have even made that mistake once or twice, falling and smashing my touchscreen as I tripped on the uneven pavement while texting and walking. I was pretty embarrassed never mind scrapped up, my punishment served. We are all addicted to these little things in our pockets. I once had my phone stolen and didn't notice for hours as I was having fun with friends, not needing my cell phone I guess. When I wanted to take a picture, I noticed it was gone, and I acted like I had lost my child in a busy marketplace. I searched online only to find it had gone a separate direction than my route, and that's when I knew it was stolen. I got it back in the end, but the thought of all of my "life" on my phone in a stranger's hand made me manic. I knew it couldn't be unlocked but regardless I was in a panic. When I had it returned, smashed from being run over by traffic, I was relieved to no end. Luckily "my child" knew how to display a message sent via my friend and the finder got in contact with her. Technology helped in that case.

The hyper-focus on our phones is jailing us, making our lives in touch, connected, and always present, which is removing our humanity. When I walk around seeing everyone's eyes down while nature swirls around them unnoticed, it makes me sad. Society always wants to protect things from disappearing, yet they don't realize they are themselves. The fact that people don't enjoy the ambient noise around them, makes them sometimes uncomfortable with the silence, and that makes me sad. The reason why someone walks in natural surroundings is to take it all in, hearing, seeing, smelling, feeling, and even tasting (in some cases) nature. Experiencing the ocean without hearing it by choice, for example, would be disappointing.

I am aging and yes I am not in my golden years yet but when people say "silence is golden" I definitely look at it in a different light. Go outside and enjoy the world, but remember there is always a soundtrack and movie happening without the busy technology drowning it out.  One of my favourite songs which I used to listen to while walking around the seawall ironically, is 3 X 5 by John Mayer, the lyrics say it all. 


I'm writing you to
Catch you up on places I've been
You held this letter
Probably got excited, but there's nothing else inside it
Didn't have a camera by my side this time
Hoping I would see the world with both my eyes
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm
In the mood to lose my way with words
Today skies are painted colors of a cowboy's cliche'
And strange how clouds that look like mountains in the sky
Are next to mountains anyway
Didn't have a camera by my side this time
Hoping I would see the world with both my eyes
Maybe I will tell you all about it when
I'm in the mood to lose my way
But let me say
You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes
It brought me back to life
You'll be with me next time I go outside
No more 3x5's
Guess you had to be there
Guess you had to be with me
Today I finally overcame
Trying to fit the world inside a picture frame
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm in the mood to
Lose my way but let me say
You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes
It brought me back to life
You'll be with me next time I go outside
No more 3x5's
Just no more 3x5's



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