The Sounds of Silence

I got one of those iPod Shuffle thingies, the little flat square MP3 player not much wider than my thumb.

It represents something of a quantum leap for me, since just the other day I was using last-millennium technology, a portable CD player on a sports belt, and now I have this little thing that can hold the equivalent of dozens of CD's worth of songs, and the little thing is clipped to my shirt, so small that it is actually easy to lose.

No Luddite I -- I heartily approve of the progress, it is a great advance. My inner DJ is always on the job, and he likes having better equipment. But after just a few days of use, it has already got me ruminating over its place in my life.

Adaptation was quick -- I have already learned the "one-bud drop" when someone is talking to me and how to arrange the wires so they won't get snagged. And the controls are intuitive, so tapping it has become second nature. (Though the geek in me, each and every time I tap at the gadget clipped to my shirt, wants to call out, "Picard to Enterprise!") But most interesting to me is that I have already started using it in ways that, if you had asked me a month ago, I would have said were unlikely: while driving, shopping, working in the garden.

I am one of those people who always has a lot going on in his head, and one way to deal with the mental cocktail party is to turn up the music and sing along. So having a wealth of songs easily available is a blessing. But I have to wonder: what about my skills at dealing with silence? Will they decline? Is this gadget the point of a wedge?

Daily, I see many indications that young people are now unable to deal with silence -- forced to unplug, they jitter, they shake, they start drumming their fingers, jingling keys, or kicking something just to have some rhythmic input. And I wonder: will I go there, even wary as I am of the effect?

What will our world be like once a whole generation has become unable to endure silence?

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I've been listening a lot lately (OK, right now, on the iPod) to Alanis Morissette, the asthma-voiced poetess. And she puts it very nicely:

Why are you so petrified of silence? Here, can you handle this:

( )

Did you think about your bills, your ex, your deadlines, or when you think you're gonna die, or did you long for the next distraction?

A thoughtful rant on being angry

(Hmm -- the reverse doesn't quite work, does it: "An angry rant on being thoughtful")

I'm angry. And I don't know what to do with my anger.

This is unusual for me, and I am uncomfortable with it. Anger is not my typical state, and I don't have much practice in dealing with it.

But I have been trying to get in better touch with my feelings rather than over-analyzing everything, and this has shaken loose some stuff and stirred other things up. And the emotional approach has brought me not just to new realizations, but to stomach-tightening enlightenment about the scope of some of those realizations.

I have held women -- so many, too many -- as they poured out their pain at how some man took their trust and abused it, took their body and abused it. I know women -- so many, too many -- who have been manipulated by society and men to believe that abusive behavior is normal and acceptable from men. Some days, it feels like every woman in the world has been programmed in this way.

And it fills me with anger, nearly to raging. Caring makes me want to set things aright; the anger makes me want the solutions to be forceful and complete. I feel the urge to track down every man who has ever violated or abused a woman, ever coldly used a woman for his own purposes without any thought of her as a person, and break him into pieces. That's what the anger urges. Or, failing that, to at least break something.

But I know that more violence is not the answer, that violence begets violence, and that it is actually a twisted form of what I am feeling now that led those men to abuse women in the first place. Rather than giving in to the anger's urge to violences, I instead channel it into something useful, like working out or digging or working in the garden. Pity any weed that crosses my path.

Some men, when they feel like this, pick fights just so they have the excuse to beat the shit out of someone and in that way use up some of the crazy energy and frustration. This is certainly not an approach of which I approve. But today I understand it a bit better.

Sometimes being a "decent" man, a man who would never do the things which I bemoan above, doesn't feel like enough. Males seek solutions, and the anger demands the solutions be significant -- fix something, break something, stop something, start something. But how to start, when it feels like a problem inherent in one's sex?

Sometimes being a man means to feel tainted by association.

I'm angry. And I don't know what to do with my anger.

It's a beautiful world we live in, a sweet romantic place

It’s a beautiful world we live in, a sweet romantic place

I was outside just now working in the garden, chopping and pulling weeds. I can't begrudge them their vigorous use of the rains we've had daily for the last week -- how can the rain be a blessing for my crops, and not for them as well? They will become mulch in their own time, their growth and death adding to the overall vigor of the garden.

It has been an absolutely beautiful New Mexico evening -- warm with light breezes, mosquitos not too bad despite the rain, greenery lush about. The trees surrounding the fields are in full shiny leaf; the fallow crops in the field are approaching shoulder-high. The sky was literally breathtaking; I several times gasped aloud as I paused in my labors to discover new combinations of pinks and reds in the varied clouds, all set against several shades of blue. An amazing painting on a fabulous canvas, changing from moment to moment.

The cat came around to supervise and sniff at the new-turned earth; the dog came about to help and for sunflower seeds. He likes the salt, and often polices up the shells I have spit out, so sometimes I pour a few out into my hand for him to munch directly.

The teenage coyotes over on the bosque suddenly set up an excited yapfest, probably signaling the demise of some unfortunate creature they came upon. I was pleased to see the cat head closer to the house, at the sound. He should respect them; he wouldn't make even a good snack for each of them.

A crow flew over. Two hummingbirds each decided that half the sky was not a big enough realm, and began noisily swordfighting for dominion.

A beautiful night. Life is good.

I don't know who made this existence of which I share a slice -- God, Nature, chance, or a shared illusion of some group mind. But ultimately I don't care; I am simply grateful that it is, that I am part of it and can appreciate it with awe. I strive every day to approach this universe in wonder and humility -- yes, true humbleness, for the universe is so much grander than I that any arrogance is not only inappropriate but actually laughable.

Thank you for being, world. I sing your praises.

Words to live by

Do what thy manhood bids thee do,

from none but self expect applause;

He noblest lives and noblest dies

who makes and keeps his self-made laws.

- Sir Richard Burton

Some things I think about

There are some things I think about, things that I don't see other people thinking about though perhaps they should.

The other day at the library, when we opened there were some boxes and bags leaned up against the front door. We come in the back door where the loading dock is, so it wasn't a problem, but I went out to tidy them up.

I glanced into them just enough to see that there were some books and magazines in them. People often leave us donations -- the magazines go into a freebie bin in the foyer, and the books go downtown where the Friends for the Library sort them and put them in the book sales to raise funds for us.

I picked up the boxes to haul them inside. I did not:

-- Look around for snipers before I grabbed the packages
-- Hurry back inside, before anyone could get a bead on me
-- Wonder who left them, and if they intended harm
-- Think there might be something dangerous in them, underneath the stuff on top
-- Call a bomb squad to remove and explode the packages
-- Worry if possession of any of the literature would get me arrested

I just brought the boxes and bags inside. The worst danger I was exposed to was perhaps some dust, or maybe a black widow spider if someone left the stuff in their shed too long.

There are so many things we take for granted. And we should, because we can -- not much sense in worrying about things that don't apply, that's called paranoia. But while we shouldn't worry about such things, we should appreciate that we are free from that worry, that for many people around the world it is not so.

We should be grateful, that we don't have to think about such things.