to the man passing by in the maroon van
to the man passing by in the maroon van
and to the man passing by in the white mustang
While I enjoy the silence, or at least the essay by Natalia Ginzberg of the same name, I begin to sneeze. It's allergy season, and while this year hasn't done its normal number on me like those of the past, this Sunday has brought on fits of my nasal cavity throwing out whatever pollen is tickling its confines.
I sneeze once, twice, three times, but it's not a malady, it's the grass pollen. I sneeze a fourth and fifth time as a man drives by, in his maroon Ford Econoline van. "Bless you," he, across what I take to be his wife, shouts through the window. "Thank you," volleys my reply.
And I mean it, too. Despite the superstitious, in fact full-on religious, reasons for the phrase, the simple act of saying "bless you" takes me back to the present. It connects me to the man in my community, or maybe the broader county, or perhaps just a visitor passing through. It reminds me of the need for simple acts done in the moment, almost by default but no less meaningful to the sayer or the intended recipient or to the innocent or not so innocent bystander listening.
Like yawning - and even as I type these words, I yawn1 - kindness is contagious. But we seem to have developed an immunity to it. While the now rare sight of someone holding open the door for his fellow man continues to decrease, the rarer sight is someone saying thank you or even a simple hello in return. I make a point to wave and say hello to every single person I see out during my runs, yet the average reply rarely breaks 50%.
There are a few obvious causes we could blame. We're much more easily distracted with phones no more than a moment’s touch away. Perhaps we don't even see or hear the act of kindness: a sin of omission. We went through some serious shit with pandemic lockdowns. Perhaps we forgot what it's like to exist and live within a society with certain norms: a sin of repression. I can attest to this one, as eye contact continues to be something I have to continue to relearn since Zoom-everything.
We put earbuds in our canals and headphones over our ears, shutting out - silencing - the world around us: a sin of remission. We walk with heads down in our phones, staring at a screen, instead of out ahead of us, above us, around us. We bump into someone else doing the same thing: a sin of commission. We sit down to dinner with our family at a restaurant, each family member tethered to their phone instead of interacting with each other, being a family: another sin of commission.
We prioritize online interactions - I refuse to call it a community - over in person relationships, a simple click to like a post, a hold and tap of Ha Ha to laugh at someone's iMessage text, a read receipt sent. Relationships take work and work by definition requires action. As Natalia Ginzberg says in her essay Human Relationships:
Human relationships have to be rediscovered and reinvented every day. We have to remember constantly that every kind of meeting with our neighbor is a human action and so it is always evil or good, true or deceitful, a kindness or sin.
And it is clear by now that this essay takes on the familiar tone of those from recent past. I cast a stone knowing full well I live in a glass house. And while I like to think I'm less likely than most to the sins of omission and repression and commission and remission above, I too am prone to blocking out the world with earbuds in. Sometimes there isn't even music playing, I just need to shut out the world around me.
But as Ginzberg says to close her essay Silence:
Silence must be faced and judged from a moral standpoint. Because silence, like acedia and like luxury, is a sin. The fact that in our time it is a sin common to all our fellow men, that it is the bitter fruit of our sick times, does not excuse us from recognizing it for what it is and from calling it by its true name.
She wrote these words in a time deafening and defeated in its silence against the fascists, fascists who tortured and killed her husband. While some today would say that silence is violence, Ginzberg's point is that it is a moral wrong. Her point, that just because we all are silent doesn't mean we are each as individuals less guilty. The tyranny of the crowd does not excuse the (lack of) wisdom in the individual.
So I wonder what she would make of today. We simultaneously silence the world around our physical being while we spew torrents of hate, spout off life's minutiae, and swipe through to the next algorithm-fed video. We silence real life and turn the volume up on fake life. Life doesn't happen online. It happens in an office, it happens at the music halls, it happens at two seats at the bar, it happens as spectators in the sporting arena, it happens outside in the front yard. Life doesn't happen when you're filming an experience behind the screen; Life happens when no one other than those you are experiencing it with get the opportunity to live it in the moment; Life happens on the back deck over dinner on a cooler-than-lately summer's night in the early buds of new friendships with nearly-neighbors.
Back in the front yard, a car obeying the 25mph speed limit gets passed in a no passing lane by a man - it's always a man - in a white Mustang going at least double the speed limit, engine blasting its please-look-at-me-as-I'm-making-up-for-something-lacking-phallically noise pollution. To that man, I say fuck you, you're living a fallacy. You disrupt the sanctity of the afternoon, endanger those who live here, and those merely passing through. You think only about yourself, disregard societal norms and break the law and for what? A tiny feeling of power, a slight boost to your ego, a little bit of attention thrown your way. You got my attention. Asshole.
But am I any better? I peacock in loud pants, I shout at the cardboard when breaking it down, I am incapable of whispering always talking too loud for those around me. I get mad when other people sneeze, especially in sequence, especially when loud, as loud as me. My wife gets mad when I don't say excuse me when I sneeze; I get frustrated when people don't say "bless you", despite the aforementioned silliness, "gesundheit", a nod to your health, or "you're so good looking" a la Seinfeld when I do, too.
Mozart said "the music is not in the notes, but in the silence between." One could interpret this to mean that it's the lack of notes - when the song is over, in the build up to the overture, in the silence that follows the show, when you break for intermission, or when you get up from your chair to turn the record over - that creates the space for music to fill, that it is sweeter as a result, a bit of absence making the heart grow fonder. One could also interpret it to mean that it is the silence that occurs within the song itself, typically section by section, or instrument by instrument, creating the space to allow another's sound to come through to take the lead, to be heard, to be acknowledged, to be seen. I think both interpretations are right.
Each of us needs to step away completely, to disconnect from the sound waves we put into our ears through noise-cancelling headphones - yes, I believe that's irony - with willful intent - think of the observance of the Sabbath - and with unplanned surprise - think of the sound of the outside world made relevant by the lack of cars and people during the pandemic - in order to gratefully welcome the reintroduction of sound. To allow the absence of sound remind us of the life sound brings.
But each of us also needs to step back during a heated conversation, allowing one's silence to not only create the void for another person's voice to step into, but also to amplify it by one's equal absence. We need to step back during a company meeting, to listen for not only who is speaking, but whose voice remains absent, silenced by those who must always have the first through last words. Yes, we were given two ears to listen and one to speak, but too many see this as a reason to speak twice as much to fill both ears of the listener. I'm aware that I talk a lot, too much some would say, and in some ways, it is the absence of my voice that too often indicates dissention when it simply means reflection. I was about to say the sale happens in the silence, but I'm interrupted in my writing by a man honking his horn for what I assume is no reason as he drives by.
This seems appropriate given that Bruce Hornsby's Look Out Any Window plays through the speaker beside me. The lyrics,
Far away, the men too busy Getting rich to care Close their eyes And let it all out into the air Hoping nobody else would care
are almost made for the moment, albeit with some adjustments. Not far away, here. Yes, he's too busy, but maybe not getting rich. He doesn't close his eyes, but I do, trying to block out the sound by limiting another's sense. Blasting the horn into the air. And who knows if he hopes nobody else would care, as it's not hope but intent that matters and his intent was to disturb.
I've disturbed your inbox now for close to nine minutes. That was my intent. When a meeting ends early, we talk about given people back the gift of time. While not as valuable, I'll give you the gift of silence in your head of my imagined voice by ending the piece.
But not quite yet.
In the musical Rent, they sing that "the opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation." So I ask: if the opposite of noise isn't silence, what is it? I have some ideas; I'd love to listen to yours.
And you likely just did, too.