© Pierre Maré,
2004 - 2007
Offbeat 26
There is a wonderful story that does the rounds of the tourism industry. Apparently a mischievous tour guide takes a bus full of Japanese tourists into the desert and drops them off one by one at safe intervals. Of course at no time can they not see one-another, however the upshot is that, at the end of the experiment, on the verge of nervous breakdown, they huddle up to each other for safety.
I visit the desert on the odd occasion. It’s a big place and it can be particularly intimidating if you can’t see a way out or anyone else. Looking at it from the Japanese viewpoint, you can see more fears emerge: no crowds, no routines and particularly no noise.
The desert is an incredibly silent place. There are none of the small noises that texture even a wooded place: the snapping of a twig, the twittering of small animals and the wind blowing through the trees. The only significant noises are your breathing and the sound of the thoughts in your head.
Even in the quiet hours of an early Sunday morning, the smallest town has its sounds: distant cars, dogs and neighbours arguing over the proper time to start up the mower. Perhaps the closest most of us come to real silence is a power-outage, but then there are still cars, dogs and possibly the happy cries of looters discovering the joys of free TV sets and Play Station IIs.
Noise, or even the suspenseful absence of noise, is the soundtrack of life. And like any good soundtrack, noise tells us what to expect without giving away too much. For instance, in my household, if my daughter stops nattering at me and goes silent, I know that trouble is on its way. If she suddenly starts wailing I know that trouble has arrived. Under these circumstances, a sudden splashing from the washing machine tells me she has moved the outlet hose or opened the door mid cycle and that I will probably spend the next half an hour enjoying quality time with a mop.
The same approach can be observed and held true in every facet of present-day life. Noise predicts the orderly passing of life in much the same way church bells toll the hours. Noise also tells of situations that threaten the order of things and that need to be set right. For example, a sufficiently loud bang and a scream predict a siren.
Deaf people find ways to live without sound. For the rest of us, life without the texture of noise would be very difficult. We would have to divide our concentration and open our eyes to the world around us for a start.
But perhaps the most interesting aspect would be that, without noise, we would have to actually listen to the thoughts in our heads. The desert, with its absence of noise, is proof of this idea. People who spend any time there come back oddly silent and sometimes a whole lot weirder.
People have gone to great lengths to develop and protect the texture of noise that drowns out the din of thoughts. Music is the best example of this. Teenagers, who are known to rely on their primitive brainstems for forming any type of opinion, would be at a complete loss if not for the raucous blare of the speaker systems in their bedrooms and in nightclubs. Older people, emerging from concerts of the classical genres, a Rolling Stones concert for instance, are also marked by certain aspects of euphoria and relaxation.
Small talk is the ritual noise of social interaction. It prevents us from getting too deep and meaningful on occasions when solving the world’s problems or proposing marriage based on immediate sexual attraction would be inappropriate. Diplomacy, the small talk of global relationships, prevents politicians from paying to much attention to the voices in their heads that urge them to press the red button labeled ‘That's all, folks’.
Without noise, the world might be a very different place. The next time someone says he or she is going off in search of a ‘bit of peace and quiet’, turn up the music and start talking to them loudly: the future of life as we know it could depend on you.
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