Postcards from Real Life: Quiet

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

If you feel like you need to go to a quiet place for a noise vacation, you’re probably right.

It’s a marvel to experience true quiet. Which is a rarity for most of us. Our busy, built worlds are filled with the overwhelming noise of humanity.

Being one who’s done a lot of outdoors-y shit, I’ve had many opportunities to be wrapped in the astonishing quiet of remote natural places.

And unless you’ve had that, it’s hard to remember what true quiet is. In these natural spaces, the quietness amplifies how insanely fucking noisy our world is. And how overstimulated we are because of it.

But the constant noise of humanity has been normalized so, collectively, we’ve largely forgotten what it’s like to not be surrounded by it all. of. the. damn. time.

And I think for many who have never had a quiet outdoor experience to calibrate from, it might be uncomfortable to be in a place like this. I suspect it might feel like a void to be filled instead of a richness to savor.

The reality is that there’s still a lot we don’t know about the impact of noise pollution on our health. But growing evidence suggests it’s way more problematic for our health and quality of life than we currently give it credit for.

Anyway, that’s a massive topic that won’t fit into this little postcard. Maybe I’ll dig deeper into it another time. I just wanted to remind you that if you’re feeling like everything is so damn loud all the time, you’re right. It is. And maybe it’s a sign to get out into the wild and take a noise vacation, even for just a day.

So here’s a shot of a quiet alpine lake in the Seven Devils of Idaho for inspiration. Whether you’ve had the chance to be in a quiet place like this before or not, I hope you can picture yourself there, soaking up the quiet.

Peace out.

Bluesky Art Show

This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly theme each Saturday.