The Power of Silence: A Cautionary Tale

I read today that Meta/Facebook’s new generation of VR headsets will be able to read your facial expressions, purportedly to allow your avatar to more realistically portray emotions in whatever virtual world you have chosen to experience. Let me put aside for a moment the fact that I feel that this kind of information gathering is at least “a step too far,” if not a couple of marathons too far, and simply look at it as simply another digital information gathering device for which we are the entity being probed for information. 

Much of this information we provide voluntarily to make our lives easier. Our contacts list eliminates the need to dial - strange archaic term - our phone. We simply say “Call Joe.”  In turn our “find my” app locates our digital devices, and those of our friends and hence, usually their location. Our smartwatch monitors our breathing, temperature, and, for couples seeking to start a family their ovulation calendar. Our mattress reacts to our sleeping behavior, adjusting position and temperature to enhance REM sleep. Our smart fridge tells us when the milk has spoiled. MyChart lets us know when we are running low on meds, the pharmacy automatically reorders the meds and then either mails them to us or sends us an reminder to come pick them up, which prompts us to hop into the car where the gps will guide us to the drug store, turn on our favorite music channel, and ask us if we would like it to read us any email we have received.

I found this post in this morning’s email: “Imagine riding an Apple e-bike while your Apple AR glasses share turn-by-turn navigation, your Apple Watch provides biofeedback, the bike itself tracks information on output, speed and air quality — and maybe the coffee shop up ahead sends a discount coupon to entice you to stop by.”

Whether this is heaven or hell or somewhere in between is a matter of personal preference. My concern at the moment is my realization that we are often, waking or sleeping, attending or ignoring, consciously or subconsciously, in a state of constant communication.  And we have come to, what, expect it? Want it? Can’t live without it? I don’t know. We have all heard of the dreaded FOMO - aka Fear of Missing Out. At an extreme level we have all been irritated by it - friends who sit down at lunch and immediately put their phone on the table. Jeez.

But the intent of this post is to explore the opposite of all this frenetic communication: the sounds of silence. I read today - New Scientist, I believe - how folks are paying for some time in isolation chambers. They claim to emerge refreshed, calmer, less stressed, less depressed. That’s really kind of neat. Had me looking around for my noise canceling headphones, until I realized that I usually used them to listen to music or nature sounds, storms, even trains. Not quite silence. So I kept drawing and listening to the podcast about silence. Strange, eh?

Anyhow, it was awhile until I was struck by another, even stranger idea: the weaponization of silence.  Bear with me here.  We live, for the most part anyhow, in a two closely related auditory worlds. There is the world of ambient sound, environmental sound.  This is everything that creeps into our ears, from the gentle rush of the AC or heat whooshing on, the dishwasher whirring, lawnmowers and leaf blowers intruding, traffic, all that ambient sound. We “hear” it but are largely unaware of it until the curtain of sound is disrupted - the microwave, dryer, dishwasher, email, or whatever dings, or beeps, or chimes. And we attend.  I have seen a commercial - I think for a HVAC system. The video pans through a home, regular middle-class house, dog asleep, no movement, no audio. Then the audio fades in: ”This is the sound of the yadda yadda home heating system.” The implication is that there is no sound and that is unique. Reminds me of another spot where a harried Mom escapes from a, what, playground maybe? Anyhow, she slips into the front seat of her rather plush auto and shuts the door, closes her eyes and sighs. Both spots acknowledge the intrusive nature of ambient sound and present an option to catch some silence.

More interesting to me is the second acoustic world in which we exist: the acoustic world we voluntarily create. I am perhaps more attuned to this world because I rarely - indeed if ever - step out of it. It is a soundscape made possible by technology. I am writing this on my iPad as the clock leaves midnight in the rear view mirror - and Pandora plays a gentle spa music track in the background.  When I decide to stop writing I will leave Pandora on activate some similar track, meditative, spa-ish, instrumental stuff and then will overdub that with a NatureScapes track of wind or rain or a stream or crickets or whatever - which I will leave on all night. So, yes, I am sound dependent. It isn’t that I am silence averse, I just see no reason to seek it.  Although writing this post has convinced me to give it a whirl. But, I am wandering off course here a bit. I wanted to be talking about the weaponization of silence.

There is an interesting parallel notion in the acoustic world we create. There is a communicative aspect component to it. We seek sound based input that confirms, aids, or enhances our life. Reminders from our smartphone, watch, or whatever, keeps us “on task,” music that we enjoy passes time pleasurably, videos entertain us, while actual phone calls, voicemails, posted images, text messages, and video chats keep us connected to the important people in our lives. And it is this last cluster of communicative interactions that can be weaponized. Let me explain.

There was a time when a person might live their entire life in the village where they were born. An "adventure" might be defined by hiking a mile or two down a dirt track to the next village over. Maybe to trade excess produce, maybe to seek a spouse. This lack of mobility was transformed as transportation and communication options evolved. Living in the 21st century those twin evolutions have resulted in the somewhat uncomfortable reality that we often live at significant distance from those we hold most dear.  Hence the digital communication tools mentioned above become increasing vital in initiating and maintaining relationships. All kinds of relationships.

The covid pandemic drove significant segments portions of the population "home." Business, school, shopping, all found themselves becoming internet activities. As such, they became more vulnerable to unique, often unwelcome, interruptions as hackers and scammers took advantage of their ability to hide their nefarious activity behind their internet anonymity and keyboards. Both businesses and software applications have taken steps to insure our privacy when communicating via those digital avenues. And significant protective progress has been made in those reciprocal initiatives. But that is not the weaponization arena that concerns me - it is in interpersonal communication.

Let me provide an unintentional example of which I found myself a part. We have dear friends both of whom just celebrated their 90th birthdays. They still live in Raleigh, NC which is where our friendship was initially nurtured with shared dinners. He is an accomplished artist and luthier, still turning out commissioned paintings and repairing damaged string instruments for local colleges and orchestras. He is, however, and not terribly surprising, completely computer illiterate. She continues to take care of the house to the best of her ability, which has become increasingly compromised by swiftly failing sight. This also curtails another of her favorite activities - surfing the internet. She has gradually increased the font size and magnification on her screen. But now the situation is such that most relevant content gets shoved beyond the margins of her screen and so out of sight. Actual phone conversations are also difficult. He has memory and hearing issues that make following a conversation difficult and we have learned that she - because of similar issues - used lip-reading to a far greater extent than we had previously realized. A strategy severely compromised in phone-based conversations. As a result our interactions with them have, sadly, decreased markedly. So meaningful interactions are possible only when we make one of our own increasingly rare trips back to Raleigh. And on those instances when we appear at their door we are inevitably greeted with wails of "We thought you were dead ! We thought you didn't love us anymore!" Hence much time must be spent with assurances of our continuing affection.

Now, it is important to remember that all this is the result of unintended communication glitches among folks who really wanted to remain "in touch." That is not the case in what I refer to as the weaponization of silence.

I have relatively recently become aware of something called "ghosting." It is far from the cuddly notion of Casper the friendly ghost or the Halloween decorations of the season. For those of you who are, as I was, unfamiliar with this phenomenon let me provide a brief description. First we need to realize that often the internet is a primary mode of communication between intimate couples. A situation significantly accentuated by the recent, and somewhat continuing, covid pandemic, and the resultant disruption of traditional avenues of communication with a loved one. Provides a whole new spin on "Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo?" "Ghosting" is a modern, high tech version of a lovers quarrel. In "ghosting" one person in the couple feels they have been slighted. It is not always evident who "started it," but as the song says "somebody done somebody wrong." And the aggrieved party breaks off communication with the "wrong doer." And often it is the technology aspect of the quarrel that weaponizes this type of interaction. In the BI - "Before Internet" - days it was not terribly difficult to find a route to your lover's side and hopefully repair the rift in a face-to-face interaction. But pandemic mandated lockdowns, or the reality of long-distance relationships decrees that "ghosting" takes place is the digital domain. In digitized "ghosting" s/he who is doing the "ghosting" breaks off all digital contact with the "other."

In old mysteries or police procedural movies, where one of our protagonists is in prison, ghosting was accomplished by tossing the protagonist into "solitary confinement." No contact with the outside world. Ghosting is a digital, personal version of solitary confinement. The ghoster, or in this case, jailor, alienates the prisoner from any digital contact between the prisoner and the jailor. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways. Easiest, but still irritating to the jailor, is to simply ignore any attempts at communication from s/he who is being ghosted. More complicated, but perhaps more effective in the long run, is to block the prisoner's email and other contact information from the jailor's communication applications. This not only keeps the prisoner in his/her specific cell, but spares the jailor from any future reminders of his/her existence.

If you find this weaponization strategy repugnant - as do I - it may be because it stands in direct opposition the the first and primary tenet of Distilled Harmony: Foster Harmony. Obviously, it is impossible to foster harmony with someone whose existence you are essentially denying. If we explore the tenet of foster harmony more closely we soon discover that it is conceptually linked to another related idea: forgiveness.

The current scope of human callousness, reflected in the "news stories" in our morning emails and TV news shows, does tempt one to see the concept of forgiveness as, if not a fantasy, then at least a sadly futile undertaking. How does one forgive a nation, a government, a multinational corporation, whose behaviors are harming the physical integrity of the planet and endangering if not actually terminating the lives of millions of inhabitants - human and non- human but potentially sentient entities? Perhaps by reducing our focus. By attempting to doing more to forgive on a smaller scale, on a one-to-one scale. Most, if not all, "somebody done somebody wrong" fights are a matter of perception. Both sides see themselves as the wronged party - and are loath to give up that argumentative "high ground" by admitting to fault, seeing that as a step too far.

Forgiving is compromise. It stems from the consideration that perhaps one's life was better with the other in it. As Willie Nelson sang: "Love is hard to find. Love of any kind." Forgiving opens the door to the possibility of loving. The mechanics of forgiving can be complicated and are unique to each relationship. But there is one element that is common to every act of potential forgiveness - communication. 

Forgiveness cannot occur in a "ghosted" environment. Back in 1987, President Reagan, standing by the wall that had divided East and West Germany for decades said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" To world's amazement Gorbachev did just that, and friends, families, and lovers streamed across the newly-opened divide into each other's arms. Ghosters should ask themselves, "Is what separates me from this formerly precious person more intractable than the wall which divided an entire nation?" 

 Tear down your walls.

Seeking Sunset Shades of Harmony

I know when it is time to stop drawing when I can no longer decide which color belongs where. That is an indication that my logical mind is attempting to impose its will on my artistic inclination. It means I am beginning to think that certain colors "belong" together while others do not. I am letting myself, either consciously or unconsciously, get sucked into the fallacy of the color wheel, you know that pie-shaped wheel of primary colors that shows the relationship among colors, which go together and which don’t. I call it the fallacy of the color wheel not so much because it is wrong, but because it is limited. It implies artificial boundaries, aesthetic divisions. I much prefer the implications of a sunset.

Next time you see a really fine sunset, one that just takes your breath away, stop and stare a bit. Think about the colors. Are any of them “wrong?”  Do any of them “not go together?” See what I mean? The sunset tells us that all colors go together. All colors can be woven together in a pleasing harmonious construction. The same is true of people.

Ah, caught you a little by surprise there, right? But a "sunset perception of humanity" is really what lies at the center of our old friend Distilled Harmony - most particularly in the notion mandated by the first and primary tenet - foster harmony. These days I suppose I am drawn to a need to take a closer look at Harmony by its seeming decline in the world around us. Particularly this morning where I encountered a news post about 6 people being shot down on a greenway in Raleigh, NC, where I spent 40 odd years of my working life. The shooter was himself 16 years old. 

That is exceptionally upsetting , yet each morning’s news of the latest shenanigans of the Putins, the Trumps, the Xi Jinpings and the other anti-democratic, authoritarian “would be dictators” currently strutting across the world stage is more than sufficient to curdle your cornflakes. I find it incredibly depressing that, seemingly, significant numbers of individuals, both here at home and increasingly around the globe, are rallying to these Ill-conceived, morally bankrupt philosophies. But more than simply depressing, I find that “the world is too much with me.” 50 years ago I would have been - and was - out on the streets marching, protesting, getting in peoples’ faces. Power to the people and all that. Nowadays it’s more like “stop the world, I want to get off.”

It is, I suppose because I am older, maybe a bit wiser, and certainly more cynical, that I find I do not fit comfortably in any “political group.”  The Trump-led rising fascism of the alt-right here at home is repugnant, and the all encompassing social brief of the populist left seems at times to strain credulity. So finding myself “groupless,” it is not strange that I find myself strongly inclined to re-dedicate myself to a purely personal implementation of the first tenet of Distilled Harmony - foster harmony. But as the title of this post indicates, and my brief foray into sunsets and color wheels also implies, a personal approach to fostering harmony is not quite as simple as it might appear at first blush.

The primary problem is that fostering harmony is an exercise in persuasion. The challenge is to convince people that treating people humanely and gently is a better way to live than bullying, berating, or beating them into some questionable semblance of an appearance of agreement. Right, but how do you accomplish this persuasive task?  Before retiring I observed that a significant number of our majors were beginning to specialize in public relations - which is one of the current academic pigeonholes for folks seeking a career centered on persuading audiences, clients, customers, publics, etc., to feel favorably about the product, company, or person who is paying their salary. It was, at least back then, primarily a corporate path. Big companies had PR departments, often called something else, like Community Relations, or Public Outreach. Advertising departments usually lived somewhere in these corporate niches, because, obviously the sole purpose of advertising is to persuade us to think positively enough about a person, product or philosophy to open our wallets to acquire or support said person, product or philosophy.

Anyhow I didn’t think that the best route for me to foster harmony lay in any of those directions. First of all it would seem to imply getting a job.  No. Been there, done that, albeit in one of the most “boss free,” “do your own thing” environments around - the increasingly endangered professional environment of a university campus. Still, shudder, no. No job. So, ha, ha, I laugh at your idea of some PR-ish job. And even if one were to become staggering successful in the corporate world, that is no guarantee that you could, or would, persuade people to live a more gentle, harmonious life. Need I say Elon Musk? Mark Zuckerberg? Jeff Bezos? Bill and Melinda Gates are delightful exceptions - but sad that they seem to be outliers. 

I probably cannot leave a discussion of this world of public persuasion without mentioning the latest - to me anyhow - critters in the corral - influencers. As I understand them, “influencers” are individuals who have created a large enough public persona that influences folks to behave like, believe like, and most often shop like the influencer, emulating their purchases, appearance, style, etc.  Ah, brave new world that has such people in it! They thrive most obviously in digital space, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, etc.  An internet search revealed that I know none of the current top influencers - with the possible exception of actors and athletes hawking various versions of cryptocurrency or sub-sandwiches.  So seeking to join their ranks in my personal attempt to increase global Harmony, would seem an ill-fated sojourn.

So, what’s a guy to do? Here’s an idea: Get small. Think inside the box. I have noticed, and written about here on the Wall, an interesting notion seemingly shared by an overwhelming number of faiths and philosophies. The notion is varyingly expressed; the phrases vary, some long, complex and flowery, some wrapped in supplications, some poised as commandments, some as the inescapable results of scientific examinations and the resultant algorithm, some irrefutable logical conclusions, but all these many flavors of assertions all point in one direction - a desire for a peaceful harmonic world; a world free from fear and want, a world in which humanity lives in concert with one and other and with the natural world.

Right. So how do we get there? Again, get small. Think inside the box. My ethical upbringing springs from Judeo-Christian roots so I first encountered this “shared interesting notion” thus: “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.” Attributed to Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, but found in both the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible. However, I have found similar versions in the writings of virtually every faith and philosophy I have had the pleasure of reading; Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Quakers, Hinduism, and all the versions and divisions thereof have their own versions of that simple truth: Treat others as you would like to be treated - gently, compassionately, with respect and tolerance.

But I still come up against a problem. Who are these “others?” Apparently that is not a simple question. Human history is fraught with examples of armies - philosophically pure or religiously devout - bent upon the destruction of other armies apparently less philosophically pure or religiously devout.  As a species, we seem to have an unfortunate inclination to be rather restrictive in our designation of the “others” with whom we wish to include in our reciprocal harmonious “doing unto.” Far too often the “others” are pretty well restricted to us - others who look, think, and believe like us. An old Pogo cartoon condensed that subtle bias beautifully: “We have met the enemy and they are us!” and sadly, from Alice in Wonderland - "Off with their heads!"

How do we avoid this unfortunate inclination towards self-deception and mutual destruction? Again, get small. Think inside the box. Look out your window. Get in your car - or better - hop on a bus, or a streetcar, tram, trolley. I don’t really care what you call it. Go grocery shopping. Walk past a park, a playground. Go have a burger at a fast food joint. Get a pizza, eat in, don’t take out. Visit a part of town where you just don’t feel comfortable. Look around. These are the others. These are the folks we need to “do unto as we would have them do.” 

How do we accomplish that? I find myself less drawn to public harangues and chanting. My knees aren’t much good for marching anymore. These days I’m more drawn to the idea of personally striving for new harmonic norms in our everyday lives. Adopt polite behavior, kind behavior, responsible behavior, tolerant behavior. Let the harried parent with three kids in the giant SUV have the parking place close to the door. At restaurants, be nice to the service people. On the road merge gently - a behavior much in need of encouragement here on the freeways of Chicagoland. Smile. Recycle. Sweat the little stuff. You know what I mean. We know how we want to be treated - so we really do know how to treat others. Sow harmony in little varied bits of harmonious behavior with the actual people with whom you share your neighborhood and your life. Who knows we might just discover that those little bits could one day flower into a lovely sunset of harmony.

In Lieu of Hibernation

It was Wednesday evening, so I trundled the trash cans out to the curb, and for the first time in more than a year thought, “Brrrr. It’s cold!” Well, not really cold. I had taught for 2 years at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, located, for those of you unfamiliar with that state, about 110 miles north of Madison and 2 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Come winter - which could arrive in early September - you plugged your car into a block heater to keep the oil from freezing, for crying out loud!  So, not that kind of cold, but different enough from what we had been having to qualify as “cold.”

And considering the geographical variable is important. More than a few of my friends have viewed our move from North Carolina to the suburbs of Chicago with disbelief. “Chicago? You’ll freeze to death!”  One replies with art, theater, restaurants - which unfortunately Covid has somewhat curtailed. But let’s stick to weather for the nonce. We are not taking jobs in Chicago - we are retiring. Snow and ice and cold are certainly problematic if you must for some reason leave the fireside. However, if, on the other hand, you are a kind of climatic tourist, toasting your tootsies in front of the fire as the wind and snow goes wurthering around the house, the word that comes to mind is “cozy.”

So I scurried back inside, nursing the flicker of “cozy,” gave Vido, the large and very cozy black lab stretched out on the living room floor a quick rub - he thumped his tail approvingly - and settled back onto the couch. Maybe it was that quick little unexpected “burr” that drew my attention to an article - National Geographic? Curiosity Stream? Not sure which, but the general theme was how various critters were dealing with the approach of winter.  And as is often the case with my iPad browsing I began to skip around. 

First, I perused a video about the black bear population on Vancouver Island - there are quite a lot of them. And the amount of salmon they consume in preparation for their winter hibernation. The phrase “mass quantities” springs to mind from somewhere. Beldar? Perhaps?  The same can be said of the nuts and berries stashed away by all manner of furry critters; squirrels, mice, rabbits, moles and voles, which themselves became entrées for the pre-hibernation feasts of bigger critters.  There was even an article about how bears regulate their insulin to maintain slumber throughout winter. Which got me thinking, why not? If bears do it, bees do it, squirrels up there in the trees do it, why shouldn’t we do it? Let’s do it - let’s hibernate! OK. Getting a little punchy. But really, with CRISPR, and tech barons flirting with cryogenically induced immortality, would some version of human hibernation be such a big deal?

Now, in the name of full disclosure, I must admit that sleeping ranks up there among my favorite activities  - along with dozing, napping, dreaming, etc. So advocating human hibernation fits right in there with one of my wife’s favorite mantras: “anything worth doing is worth overdoing.” But hibernation is not as simple as it might seem at first blush. There are some concerns. First, a number of “hibernators” actually give birth while hibernating. Being male, this would not be an issue for me, but considering my other nocturnal visits to the BR, there is cause for concern. This concern remains despite knowing that bears themselves do take some “hibernation walk-abouts” during the winter. Second, housing. Caves seem fine for furry critters and bats, ponds for amphibious hibernators, eaves for our feathered friends; but I fear we have moved beyond the archaic shared hearths of our progenitors. We seem to have grown overly dependent upon beds that move and shift, warm and cool us, driven by data gleaned from our smartphones, intelligent watches, and brain-reading ear buds. Whoa! I am quickly talking myself out of human hibernation. Maybe, I need to turn away from AI hibernation and pay more attention to “the inner world” of hibernation.

There the attraction remains. When my daughters were young, they were both charter members of BSA (bad sleepers anonymous) and needed help drifting off to sleep. So I would often read to them. However on occasion they - particularly the younger - would request “a story out of your head, Daddy!” And so Mouse Tales was born. Mouse Tales came to be what I called “adventures in lullaby.”  I would tell stories of Papa Mouse, Mama Mouse, Sister Mouse and Brother Mouse who seemed to always be seeking shelter at night as a winter storm was blowing in.  They would scamper up a pine tree, discover a "cosy" abandoned woodpecker hole, filled with warm, soft pine needles.  They would snuggle down into the pine needles, and listen to the wind as the tree swayed gently back and forth and back and forth and back and forth . . . with me repeating the “back and forth” refrain gradually more slowly and quietly until I was able to slide out of the room without one of them popping up to inquire “Then what happened, Daddy?” You get the idea.

I have retained significant aspects of this ritual as I seek to ease myself to sleep. Those of you who are curious about the solitary nature of this ritual have apparently not moved through another of life’s common evolutionary stages: “The Who is Snoring Ritual.” This along with the “God, It’s Freezing in Here Ritual ” partner to the “God I’m Sweating to Death Ritual” or the “l Can’t Sleep Without White Noise Ritual” all of which go a long way to explaining why couples in affluent cultures have separate bedrooms. So bear with me as I share my “could be the seed of human hibernation ritual.”

I target 10 pm as the starting point. I toddle downstairs to my studio cum gallery cum bedroom, a nice finished lower floor, which does unfortunately lack a bathroom, but is acoustically isolated from the rest of the house. Hey, you have to make some trade-offs!  At 10:00 I fire up the iPad, turn on Curiosity Stream, and choose my video. Tonight I am engrossed in a series of Secret Society episodes - The Masons and Knights Templar. That takes about an hour. Sometimes, I’ll opt for a double-feature, but that will run me right up to midnight and endangers my reading hour.

My reading hour is usually dedicated to serialized fiction - mysteries most often. The reading hour also triggers audio elements. Again, iPad centered which allows me to blend classical music with NatureScapes Holographic Audio - rain, wind, water, cicadas, storms, whatever, that forms the background for my reading. OK, so we are now coming up on midnight which is meditation time. And here I do another bit of blending- a Reiki meditation session often backed by a folk music channel from, oh, early 1960s, to maybe mid-70s.  That takes me off toward the tiny hours and I drift off to sleep. Unless, god forbid, somewhere along the line I stumble across an idea that I want to share with you. Then I fire up Evernote and start to write. If I can hold myself to just sketching the main ideas, 2 AM is a reasonable target. But, if I really get into it, just beating sunrise is a more likely goal.

So, really not hibernation at all. More like aestivation - a state of being awake, active. And how terribly, terribly strange is that: throwing myself into a state of aestivation in the pursuit of human hibernation. I am doing something very wrong. Oh? What? Just a shade after midnight. Time to meditate. Maybe Eva Cassidy Songbird, or Live at Blues Alley. I’ll let you know. Night, night.