Oregon Humanities

Quiet

We live in a noisy and intrusive society. Cell phones and electronic devices summon us non-stop. They are addictive. They must be obeyed. But no electronic device I know of can teach us how to think nor can it help us find peace in the only venue that really counts: our own heads.

Be honest here. When was the last time you sat on a hillside, a park bench, or even in your own back yard and just listened—let your mind roll on—waited for whatever popped into your head for thirty minutes or more? Those who meditate or pray do this regularly and it is totally healthy, for self knowledge and for grounding, but it doesn’t just happen in our society because everything we have created demands a piece of us. We are subjected to more than 3,000 advertisements each day. Our jobs require that we respond instantaneously. Even our leisure is filled with tee times, schedules, and deadlines.

When I first started practicing law, a draft of a proposed contract would arrive in the mail, we would think about it and tinker with it for a few days and then send it off, again by mail, and over a period of several weeks would come to an agreement, or not. Then came the fax, the courier and e-mail, and at least in my mind a decline in the quality of our work. Fast is not necessarily good. Johannes Brahms, in creating his first symphony wrote: “today I worked on my symphony. In the morning I put in an eighth note and in the afternoon, I took it out.”

We know that anxiety arises, in large part, from lack of control. That is why one of the most stressful jobs is that of clerical workers who have monster jobs dumped on them with totally unrealistic deadlines. One escape, although it has multiple demands of a different kind, is to have a pet. Fifty nine percent of American households have a cat or dog, and I think, consciously or not, one of the attractions is that our poodle is not constantly texting us.

Lots of people listen to music as they are going about other tasks. With the exception of driving in a car, I can’t do it. Background music is just noise. If music is worth listening to, it is one of the most demanding ways to spend time. If the music is any good—and why listen if it isn’t—it requires all of our attention and concentration to hear the different instruments, the chord progressions, the harmonies and lyrics. I love music, but it is not the answer to clearing out my head.

Plato probably started us on the road to thinking that the mind and body are separate. It is a false dichotomy. For me, the surest route to clearing the Styrofoam out of my head is vigorous exercise—rowing my single on the Willamette or running, or walking aerobically. I see lots of people exercising with headphones on. It is a missed opportunity for some healthy quiet, and perhaps some real renewal. The Roman orator Cicero told us twenty-two centuries ago that we have two ears and one mouth so we can listen more and talk less. It is still good advice. This is John Frohnmayer and I am going to be quiet now.

About John Frohnmayer

John Frohnmayer is an author, lawyer, and ethicist. He has served on the board of Oregon Humanities since 2007. He wrote about the problems with capitalism (Beyond Individualism) in the Summer 2009 “stuff” issue of Oregon Humanities magazine.

18 March 2010 | Posted by John Frohnmayer in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas
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