Noise!

Has anyone noticed how noisy America has become?

Noise raises your level of tension, rubs against your nerves, distracts and annoys. This noise is not just the mechanical grating and screeching of machinery at work, it’s any and all of the hundreds of ways your attention is demanded and your time imposed upon. It’s shrieking public discourse.

There are beepers and cell phones, the irritated honking of car horns, television sets left on but not attended to, telephone solicitors, car radios, leaf blowers, car alarms, and in every public space where people gather to visit during a pause in the day’s activities the decibel levels of human voices rise as we try to be heard over the thoughtfully provided music that none of us is listening to and none of us want.

Much of this noise we impose on ourselves. Walkers, joggers, bicyclists, folks waiting for busses, even people waiting for a movie to start are plugged in and turned on to their radios. As a nation we seem increasingly unable to be alone with the contents of our own minds.

The truth is that this noise is not merely sound, but something like psychological static…conflicting messages that pour in to swamp our nervous systems.

Radio and television daily bring us news of fresh disasters or, more correctly, more news of the same disasters, with no hint of how we might avoid them. Some wag called this “all terrorism all the time newscasting” and it ratchets up our levels of tension and anxiety.

As we enter the season of Winter Festivals, our personal calendars will fill with  activities and obligations. We’ll struggle to bridge the gaps in our connections with friends and family by shopping our way though crowded malls and stores. Newspapers will fill with ads that suggest presents are the only way to be present to the others in our lives.

It’s time to say “no” to noise.

Turn off your television set, the kids’ television sets, and all the radios in your house for a week. Let the daily papers pile up unread, don’t answer your phone after six o’clock at night. Trust me on this, you’ll miss nothing and a kind of peace will settle over your household.

Turn off your computers and video games. Movies won’t be any worse for not having been seen for a few days.

Above all don’t shop. The various Winter Festivals…apart from their religious significance…are essentially for kids. Buy something for the little ones but give up gift giving to adults, it generally turns out to be an expensive pain in the neck… and you won’t have to return stuff that doesn’t fit.

Instead, hunt for the slower rhythms in your life. Read a book, bake cookies, listen to the wind, write a letter to a friend, tell someone you love that you love them.

Take a walk.

Winning The Lottery

It’s a game we all play: What would you do if you won the lottery? Won big, won so big that you could frame your life any way you chose?

Except in the  way I am about to tell you I don’t believe my life would change too significantly…or say, rather, that I would not initiate great changes. I like my home and think I would keep living in it. I enjoy household chores, fixing things, and working on the bikes. Oh, I might hire the occasional handyman or housecleaner, but apart from that I can imagine my life grinding on pretty much as it does now.

I might buy another motorcycle, but we have two already and motorcycles can only be enjoyed one at a time.

Whenever the what-would-you-do-if-you-won-the-lottery question is asked I think of my father’s friend Harvey Hayes. When my father was a young actor Harvey was an old one. He lived in a bed-sitter in Chicago’s South Shore Country Club. My father took me to visit Mr. Hayes once (I sat quietly while they rehearsed a scene together) and I can remember being fascinated by the fact that he didn’t have a kitchen.

He had a sort of pantry with a small sink and a fridge, but he clearly never cooked. I asked him what he did for meals…his situation was now riveting…and he replied, “Well, young Arthur, I go to restaurants. I’m an actor, not a cook.”

That answer had a more profound effect on me than I suspected at the time.

If I won the lottery I would never cook again. I simply loathe cooking. I know it’s supposed to be creative and satisfying and all that, but I simply hate it. I dislike having to prepare a dinner for guests and getting all the courses to come out at the right time. I hate scrubbing up afterwards.

I would much rather treat my guests to a nice meal at an excellent restaurant. I could afford it if I had won the lottery.

Oh, I might have a small pantry kitchen like Mr. Hayes, where I could keep some bread and peanut butter or a box of orange juice… something I could eat at the sink when I got peckish… but for the most part I would eat all my meals out.

At my favorite places I would be well known. As a regular I could ask for special service…”I’m not very hungry tonight, do you suppose the chef could do a plate of sliced tomatoes and romaine, with some nicely buttered sourdough toast?” Well of course…because I was a regular who had won the lottery and always tipped well.

And I would never cook again.