The Being Quiet Project

I am about three days into a project I like to call “Being Quiet.” I am spending this time not commenting on things just to comment. I am not posting to the message board just to hear myself talk. Just to be clever. Just to be heard. Just to be “there.” I am not doing these things. I am Being Quiet.

I am a misanthrope at heart. While I enjoy individual persons quite a bit, I detest people on the whole. I don’t like the way the anonymity of the internet has given rise to the idea that it’s okay to say horrible, cruel things to people that you don’t know, won’t know, can’t know. Just because it’s “only” pixels on a screen doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to put it out there. I am guilty of saying horrible things to and about people I do and don’t know, and I don’t want to do that anymore.

I’ll never be a Nice Person, oh god no, but I don’t want to always be the person I sometimes become when I spend too much time in certain internet places. It’s not good for me. Thus, Being Quiet.

So far, it’s been quite easy. I have enough things elsewhere in my life to occupy my mind, and I don’t really miss it that much. This morning, the decision was made for me by the router having a tantrum, and I was unable to connect to the internet at all. That was a scary few hours. But the Being Quiet is happening.

I am surrounded by so much noise. That sounds odd, coming from a near-Deaf lady such as myself, but there is so much noise in the world, some of which is heard, some of which is seen. I have read a couple of different studies that say when a person loses one of their five senses, another one sharpens, as if to pick up the slack. I know for a fact that my eyesight is better now than it was 10 years ago – the glasses I once needed for reading are no longer necessary. I know that my sense of smell is a lot better, too, and as a result my palate has improved dramatically. The senses of smell and taste improving is also a direct result of not living in second-hand smoke, as I did for my first 20 years. So, that’s nice.

But the noise. It’s everywhere. Aside from the noises in the world around me, there is the noise in my head, which is annoying at best and keeps me awake at worst. It varies – some days it’s birds chirping or windchimes. Other days it’s the noise you hear in the phone when you accidentally dial a fax machine. It’s always there, however. And it sucks.

The world is also quite a noisy place, and I am thankful I don’t hear a lot of it. I don’t hear cell phones, unless the ringtone is extremely loud and obnoxious. Background music is most often just a muffled mush, and people talking is just a bumpy sort of thrum. Because I can’t hear, I see a lot more. And a lot of what I see annoys the everliving SHIT out of me, which is a bummer, since my entire Life Goal is To Not Be Annoyed.

So I am Being Quiet. I wish more people would join me.