The World is so Noisy!
All I really wanted was a quiet place to sit and gather my thoughts and write something in my journal.
In trying to do just that, I have been reminded of just how noisy our world is. It seems like no matter where you go, there's going to be some kind of noise. When I say that, I mean human generated noise... and I don't just mean trcks braking and car horns and construction sites, either.
When I sit in my home office, there's the eternal sound of fans going, and computer equipment humming. Since my space is downstairs next to the utility room, I can also hear the sound of water flowing in and out of the house through the pipes, and the sound of the water heater kicking on when someone runs hot water.
If I try to sit anywhere near the kitchen, there is the sound of the refrigerator running, the sound of a window fan, and there might be background noise coming from the laundry room. Not exactly stillness.
My creative workspace — where I do my artwork — tends to be fairly quiet but it faces out towards the neighborhood street, and there is fairly frequent traffic noise. I suppose I would be less likely to hear it if it weren't for the fact that we live on a fairly steep hill with a curve, and so anybody with a truck or towing a trailer makes a fair amount of noise going up the hill.
It makes me really appreciate how quiet it is when we go to Denmark and visit my auntie's house for holidays. Because the house is fairly old-fashioned, and is located on the middle of 24 acres of forested land, there simply is not as much mechanical noise as we experience elsewhere.
The world is NOISY!
I used to think that relative quiet was the normal part of life, but it turns out that it is the exception rather than the rule.
Perhaps all the noise — foreground and background — is also the result of our growing need to be "connected" at all times. We're constantrly on the phone; online; plugged into our music and news... even while jogging or working out... and there is just no getting away from the noisiness of it all.
I also acknowledge that our noisy world has perhaps made it so — conditioned us, if you will — that many people are actually extremely uncomfortable with silence. I remember one friend confessing to me that if she was ever in a place that seemed "too quiet" she would start feeling anxious, with a creeping sensation of worry that she was dead. It was her way of saying that she actually needed ambient noise around her in order to feel alive.
Whereas I could definitely understand what she was saying from an intellectual perspective, I have always felt unable to understand it in my heart and soul.
I guess we're all just different.
I think my first conscious awareness of how much I am bothered by artificial environmental/ambient noise came during my years of living in Texas where — during most of the year — there was never any getting away from the pervasive sound of air conditioners humming in every back yard; on every building.
Nothing like some unit's unbalanced squeaky fan to keep you awake and starting at the ceiling, all night long!
In the end, I gave up on finding a space without noise. When I do find a quiet spot and a quiet moment, I treat it as a gift and am very grateful.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week ahead!
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Created at 2025.06.08 18:49 PDT
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The photos you show look very beautiful and very enchanting, especially the hills which have very beautiful colors.
Apart from that, the flowers also really stand out with their majesty
I appreciate you having a look!
You're welcome 😉
It used to be quiet here. Town crept closer as the population grew, with accompanying light and noise pollution. The rural area built up, and more rude Californians moved in, rumbling around on assorted motorized toys. I also wrote a Snap a few days ago about visiting a friend in a neighboring town, and finding the noise from children shrieking and people blasting music at high volume quite disconcerting. I know kids make noise, but these were frequent shrieks of the sort that triggered my "someone is hurt" emergency response several times. Meanwhile, while I wasn't exactly raise with a "children should be seen and not heard" strictness, there was a general incentive to quiet. The Mother Thing was dealing with health issues and required midday naps. We kids learned to play quietly, and it suited my temperament anyway.
I struggle with noise. I like it quiet! The AC units would have driven me loopy.
I have one but haven't put it in the last couple summers. They do tend to block out a lot of the outside noise but you have to put up with the noise they make, lol.
Noise is always a serious distraction for me, and I love to getaway from the noise of traffic up into the mountains. Those are some nice "calming" pictures. That first one looks like Texas Canyon in Arizona, is that where you took the picture? I've driven past there so many times I can't count!
We have lots of wild nature to get away to here... but it still saddens me that we have to drive 30 minutes to find it.
The top photo was taken at Joshua Tree National Park in the California high desert... we used to go there a lot when my mother-in-law was still alive and kept a place in Yucca Valley.
The world is noisy, and quiet is rare, but when it finds us, even for a moment, it’s sacred. And maybe part of the beauty of it is how elusive it is.
Indeed! I treasure the quiet moments whenever I can find them!
Yes, same here! Quiet moments are truly the best. Have a wonderful weekend!🤗
I think we become conditioned to the normal noises heard around the house to the point we "condition" them out in our minds. Sort of like also the basketball court across the street, its been there so long, you no longer hear the balls bouncing, or the chatter unless something else happens where they start arguing out loud. But overall, like as with the city and it's growth, noise pollution has become a huge problem. It's hard to ignore increasing police, fire, ambulances, police helicopter buzzing above, and hoards of traffic that comes with the population growth. Every time you turn around they are announcing another big housing complex, now a new soccer stadium, amphitheater, and humongous business/apartment all within a mile or two from my house. I am ready to go it's gotten so bad. The noise is horrendous, especially the traffic and cars racing down the highway at night because the police are two busy with emergency calls. They actually shut down the entire highway exchange the weekend before last, before the cops could get to them, they spun off to a mall where they did some doughnuts and someone was shot. I live in an open air environment with the park across the street and the highway a block and a half away, morning rush hour sucks, now the night time sky is filled. Time for an exit. I know there are quieter places that exist.
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Where I live, the quietest times used to be in the winter when the electricity went out, usually because of snow-laden tree branches breaking the power lines. When the power is out, the house is extremely quiet, and outside everything would be very quiet and very dark. Then the neighbor across the road got one of those whole-house generators. So when the power goes out now, it immediately kicks on and makes noise until the electricity comes back on. Very annoying. But I'm sure they enjoy the convenience it provides.
Interestingly enough, the quietest we experience around here is precisely when the power lines are taken out by downed trees during stormy weather. Whenever that happens, I am remindedof just how much ambient noise we are surrounded by.
I'd hate to have one of those large generators so close by!
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