“Everyone Should Be Quiet Near a Little Stream and Listen”

The everyday magic of noticing in a society consumed by distraction and productivity.

Illustration by Maurice Sendak in Open House for Butterflies by Ruth Krauss.

There is no better balm for the soul than quiet (or maybe a giant hug). But in an era of white noise, who has time for the soul when it’s all but impossible to think, feel, see, and listen. We’re tethered to devices, distracted by doomscrolling, in a panic to post, and beeps and buzzes turn us into Pavlov’s dog. Technology may make it is easier to be productive and connect us to a ginormous network of “relationships,” but it does little to help us be present to the relationship we have with ourselves, the one which holds us in relation to life itself.

“Running away from boredom” is what Maria Popova, the brilliant mind behind the library of musings on Brain Pickings, calls it. “Today, amid our cult of productivity, we’ve come to see boredom as utterly inexcusable — the secular equivalent of a mortal sin. We run from it as if to be caught in our own unproductive company were a profound personal failure. We are no longer able, let alone willing, to do nothing all alone with ourselves.”

“…We are no longer able, let alone willing, to do nothing all alone with ourselves.”