The Sound of Silence

“It’s so noisy, I can’t even think.” I grew up in a musical family and there was always music or a radio or some kind of hubbub going on. My Dad worked for Columbia Records so he was always listening to new records and my mother played the piano and was a singer – so there was always music, some might say noise, in the background.

I grew up believing that it helped to drown out the extraneous sounds when I was doing homework and my parents agreed. They liked music and I thought I could think more easily with music or the radio on. Later, when I went to work for radio and TV stations it just seemed natural the radio was always in the background. In fact – dead silence was a bad thing. It meant we were off the air.

More recently for whatever reason, I have discovered that to really “think,” meaning to really get inside my head and cogitate on a something, I have to remove the background noise. With the music in the background I find myself suddenly singing along – and with the TV, suddenly I hear what’s going on and am lured away to listen – losing whatever it was I was attempting to think about.

The need to think more deeply on some topics does come – or should – when struggling with the harder decisions we are each faced with on a daily basis. Maybe the solution is a little quiet time – a few minutes to step back, get quiet and allow our mind to focus. Solutions seem a little closer when I can actually hear what’s going on in my mind. The sound of silence really can be very enlightening.