Sounds of Life

Sometimes I’m hard of hearing. Not, because of age (just yet) but because of the amount of noise all around me. There seems to be a constant stream of sound almost everywhere. Go to any restaurant, grocery store, shopping mall, dentist office...pretty much any public place, and the barrage of music is unavoidable. Go to a doctor’s office and there is a television running. In fact, there is a gas station near my home that now has a TV playing at the gas pump. Really? We can’t pump gas without watching TV?

It makes it hard to think.

Now granted, I’m not thinking all that deeply about life’s meaning while I’m comparing prices on spaghetti sauce but sometimes the clamor agitates me. I’m a non-violent person but I admit to wishing that someone would shoot the speakers nestled inconspicuously in the ceiling, because I can’t tolerate another moment of listening to Celine Dion wail about lost love. Celine, sweetie, get some therapy or something but please, stop yelling at me in the grocery store.

Occasionally I do hear a song that I enjoy, which I cheerfully accept, but then the serendipitous moment is marred by the shrieking or whining of a child who really should be home taking a nap. Or maybe it is me that should be home taking a nap. Either way, I get a little edgy when I’m happily singing along to Maggie May for the millionth time and I get interrupted by a disgruntled toddler.

I’m really not sure why we need all that noise.

And then, in addition to all the ambient noise, we have the cultural din of doomsday, and the shrieking of uncivil discourse, and those who feel that their perspective on politics or religion or what-have-you is the only correct one which gives them the right to rapidly speak over another rather than listen respectfullyandoffergracetoadifferentopinion.

Yikes.

This makes me sound grumpy but I am not, by nature, a grumpy person. Nor am I quiet. My family has maintained, for years, that they don't look for me in a crowd….they just listen. I believe boisterous is an appropriate descriptor, so it might seem incongruent that I would be lamenting the level of noise that surrounds me.

Perhaps the issue isn’t the amount of noise, but the elements of the noise that agitate me.

So much of it is a meaningless cacophony. Bedlam that drowns out the sounds of beauty and joy and life. Sounds of laughter and nature. Genuine human interaction. Even the barking dog or the crying child offer wonderful sounds of life when experienced without the underlying benign static.

Of course we need political debate. Most certainly we should embrace the right to voice our opinion. A bit more civility in the discourse would lend more credibility, I think, but I in no way believe those rights should be removed.

I’d rather not have music everywhere I go. But that is because I would prefer not to sanitize human interaction so much that if you and I are the only ones standing in an elevator the music drowns out the sound of our breathing. But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe, if I don’t hear you breathing, I don’t have to think about your humanness and if I don’t consider your humanness, I don’t feel the need to offer you respect and civility.

Even dissident opinions offered with decent, polite, civil, passionate interaction are beautiful sounds of life. Unlike their destructive counterparts; dominant, caustic, mean-spirited, and strident put-downs.

It seems our culture has forgotten how to communicate with grace and genuine concern for one another. How we communicate says a lot about who we are.

And yet, just when I think the level of destructive noise is causing our culture to ‘go to hell in a handbasket,’ beautiful sounds of life rise above the discord and remind me not to take it all too seriously.

Last week I was walking down the street when my friend, Monica, drove past. She didn’t have time to talk just then, but how she communicated, in that moment, says everything about who she is. Without even slowing down, she rolled down her window and yelled, “I love you!”

In a blur she was gone. In one whimsical moment her exuberant expression of affection reminded me that I can choose which sounds have credence and meaning. I don’t have to be distracted by all the noise. Her words penetrated the quiet of my walk but they offered a welcome sound.

A beautiful sound of life.