You don’t want to hear it.

I know.

I know because I often don’t want to hear mine, either. The whir of your own thoughts.

As you trudge from dorm to class to lunch to dorm to class to class to the library, you close it off, tune it out. Your ears stuffed full of rubber and foam, you’re buffered from thoughts as they rise.

Don’t name them, the impressions. Don’t interrogate them—you might not like what you find. Don’t turn them over like a smooth pebble in your hand.

Hurry. Quash them. Don’t listen, for your own survival.

If you can’t walk with someone to distract you (and sometimes even when you can), hold tightly in your hand the rectangle window to all things. Make it glow as it pours data and noise and entertainment into your head.

It’s scary, isn’t it, when do you hear it. When you listen and really observe what goes on in your own head? Those rare moments when you have to hear your own thoughts, uninterrupted by digital or audio diversions.

It’s not easy.

Over time it’s getting harder and harder to look at just one thing, to listen to just one thing, to engage with just one other person. The wide world sits so close, tantalizing and delicious, right at the end of your arm.

There there; just shut it off, your mind. Take these plugs and put them back in your ears, turn your eyes downward to this glowing device. Don’t worry. Don’t think. Don’t listen.