The Quest For Quiet

Image by aka Kath on Flickr

"The Quiet Ones," an op-ed in the New York Times by Tim Kreider, addresses an issue I personally struggle with on a daily basis: noise pollution. It makes you irritable at best, and at worst, according to this article, it could even be detrimental to your health.

In the Big City, I just can't avoid noise. But neither, in appears, can the people on Amtrak's "Quiet Car":

"Not long ago a couple across the aisle from me in a Quiet Car talked all the way from New York City to Boston, after two people had asked them to stop. After each reproach they would lower their voices for a while, but like a grade-school cafeteria after the lunch monitor has yelled for silence, the volume crept inexorably up again. It was soft but incessant, and against the background silence, as maddening as a dripping faucet at 3 a.m. All the way to Boston I debated whether it was bothering me enough to say something. As we approached our destination a professorial-looking man who’d spoken to them twice got up, walked back and stood over them. He turned out to be quite tall. He told them that they’d been extremely inconsiderate, and he’d had a much harder time getting his work done because of them."

It seems sometimes like the world is divided up between those who can tolerate, and/or inflict, others with noise, and those who cringe from noise. I'm in the latter category. I've recently taken up the  practice of keeping my super-noise-cancelling headphones on during my commute, regardless if I'm listening to something on them or not. Just the reduction of noise noise noise -- train screeches, loud passengers, and those who want to grace us (whether we like it or not) with their musical skills -- helps so much.

I've always considered those who so purposely and without excuse make a lot of noise in public -- such as playing their music from their apartments or parked cars so loud that my walls rattle -- to be doing it, at least subconsciously, out of aggression towards others.* Kreider in his article cites the opinion of the philosopher Aaron James, who sees the phenomenon as a sense of entitlement, as well as a failure "to recognize the moral reality of those around them."

An interesting thing I have observed is that on those days that I am most irritated or otherwise upset to begin with, I will run into more special situations that involve obnoxious displays of noise. For instance, Grumpy and Tired Me trudges off to the subway train, only to have a bunch of teenagers plant their boombox next to my seat and start breakdancing for pocket change.

So if there is one thought I'd like to add to this whole debate it is this: do we sometimes "attract" egregious or otherwise annoying noise situations? Like-energy attracting like-energy? Not blaming the victim here -- and obviously we can't just shut off all the noise inherent in a major city -- but just wondering aloud.

*The one exception I give is to parents with crying babies; I'm sure both parties are stressed enough.