The Masses Love Noise Too Much
Are they even sentient?
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and I grew up in a small, quiet, affluent town.
I would walk outside in the morning. Noon. And hear almost nothing. A few birds chirping. A gentle breeze moving through the trees. Maybe a squirrel hopping across a crunchy leaf in search of the next acorn. It was basically the Shire with a country club.
That was my life. It was perfect. It was Eden, before Eve got involved.
At home, if we watched TV, the commercials were always muted. The radio was never on when I drove in the family wagon. During supper, I’d use my “inside voice.”
Everything God made was good.
Then I visited the city.
NOISE NOISE NOISE
I still remember hearing an ambulance for the first time. My ears were on fire. My eyes filled with tears. For one brief moment, I understood the city’s homicide rate.
The sirens were so loud they temporarily turned me blind. There’s no reason they can’t be muted.
I looked around at my fellow citizens to see if they felt the same as I did.
Nope. Happy as clams. They didn’t even hear it. Not sentient.
My blood pressure was higher than the unconscious gentleman next to me on the sidewalk.
That's the part nobody warns you about. It isn't that the city is loud. It's that nobody seems to notice.
The honking. The motorcycle engines. The construction. FaceTiming in public. The drunk women outside restaurants screaming at me to get into their Uber. The loud music at the gym— or any public place. It’s relentless.
THE WORST OFFENDER
No invention has ever captured the spiritual emptiness of the modern world better than the leaf blower. A grown man straps a plastic jet engine to his back so he can move twelve leaves from one side of a driveway to the other.
And the inconsiderate crew member always blasts the engine directly outside my bedroom window at 7:30 a.m., with no apparent regard for my 3:00 tee time.
There was a time when men raked leaves. Quietly. With dignity. A rake made a gentle scraping sound. It was festive. It was spiritual. You could hear the world around you. You could pray. You could dream. You could appreciate the beautiful world you had been born into and savor each precious moment. Not me, obviously. The man I hired.
THE TESLA EXCEPTION
This is why, despite everything, I have developed a newfound respect for Tesla.
I originally wasn’t a Tesla person because the car is basically Big Brother with vegan leather seats. It knows when you drive, where you drive, how fast you drive, and shuts down when you tweet mid-trip.
But at least they’re quiet.
You can’t hear those cars as they glide past. They move like ghosts. Elegant. Sexy. Deceptively fast. The way all technology should be.
I’m bullish on Elon. He should make a Tesla leaf blower next. Silent. App-controlled. Capable of cleaning my yard without disturbing my sleep, my tee time, or my hairline.
That would be a start. Until then, I remain a victim.
TFM