I’m stealing the title for this post from John Green because well, just because it’s perfect. I am not a fan of a lot of noise although my days at work are often full of the huge dull roar that is the mall and the louder roar of people all trying to talk over music in background. Then you get the yellers and the unhappy babies and well, it’s loud.

Last weekend I went to see a Polish film, Ida which was mostly silent, little soundtrack, sparse dialogue, which was viewed by a mostly silent audience. Except for the older couple behind me who, about an hour into it, started whispering to each other as though they were watching TV in their own living room: do you think she slept with him? Where’s she going? etc. At the end, the best comment of all: “the credits are in Polish!”

Friday was our store leader’s last day and he showed us a video of Steve and then gifted us with a rock tumbler which was, no doubt about it, loud.

Tonight I watched a three hour film about the Grande Chartreuse Monastery, Into Great Silence. Three hours of very quiet ambient noise interrupted with the odd bit of chant and prayer and work. There were only a few periods of spoken words, one towards the beginning and the other nearer the end, and a couple times when all the monks were chatting with each other while outside.

As I got ready for bed I thought about all these mostly silent times and happened to check the Vlogbrothers and there was this, In Pursuit of Quiet, which illustrates how surrounded by sound we are and how uncomfortable some quiet can be. The quiet period at the end, a whole minute, we’re prepared for so it just seems pretty quiet but strikingly long.

I vote for more quiet space in the day, even though today was such a day that caused me to crank up the music during the car ride home and play Layla twice.