A Reflection On Quiet

I am someone that needs to know that the Earth is quiet. Or rather, that there are quiet places still on the Earth; not hope or visit or want—need.

I think it’s because even the quiet places aren’t resolutely silent. There is water, wind, birds, bugs, color, trees, life; life outside our own; moving, living, making noise. Still it is so much quieter than the rent, the expectations, the OCD, the dreams, the people, the ideas, the plans, the attempts, the fucking money…

I personally don’t want it if that’s all there is, or even if happiness within that noise is all there is. Show me there is verve beyond that. I break off and look for proof every quarter or else I’d lose my already lost mind.

I have to know that water moves wether I get the job or not, that beauty and peace exist even if I don’t put forth effort to actualize them.

I do wish solo backpacking was easier. Not because I don’t want to do it with friends but because amongst even my closest priests of pondering there are laughs, songs, sizzles, and groans—all imperative and nurturing.

The last time I tried to backpack by myself I ended up in roughly 4ft of snow, no potential for fire, and no chutzpah to finish my obviously expert planned three day loop. It was gorgeous but I was clinically underprepared. I barely outlasted the cold for one night before I packed up and retraced my steps in the snow head hung low, desperate for the spiritual revival of a hot shower.

I do know that even in the misery of it all I was reminded of life outside my own.

It snows even when I don’t know it, and I’m glad it does, ‘cause that means none of this other shit really matters at all.

> For any who also seek solitude in the everyday I’ve found this playlist of silent noise, especially if noise cancelling headphones are accessible, immensely helpful when I cannot physically remove myself from the clanging:

> In my younger years, a very green expression of my search for silence which collided heavily with my upbringing as a raucous adventure boy was a Hail Mary, thunderous, cross-country road trip taken by my best friend and I. I feel there isn’t enough space here to wholly recount the journey but, for me, it was greatly marking. We filmed our Odyssey, and it actually became my first ever work composing music for physical spaces and visuals—something that I now truly love. There are songs to share, and they will be over time, but this specific one landed near the middle of the pack, after we had already supped a few nights under the stars, traversed barren wastelands, and collected much to think on.

We called the trip “The Boys Who Lived,” this is the main theme played on solitary banjo:

> My current favorite representation of internal processing in art comes to us from none other than the living Grasshopper from “James and the Giant Peach” himself, Andrew Bird.

In His work Inside Problems He pens I think one of the most unequaled lines ever written, “Don’t talk to me now, I’m molting…”