"Do you hear the silence over the noise?".

 

“My Grandmother Clock”

The human subconscious is amazing at times.

I find it amazing how we can become so accustomed to some things, but other things become more and more obvious.

Take for instance my “grandmother clock”.

It ticks quite loudly.

Every second a constant reminder of its existence. Every half hour a single chime to assure me of that existence. Every hour the gongs of the passage of time.

Yet, I do not hear it.

If perhaps it stops because I neglected to wind it, I hear the silence.

I live three blocks from one of the busiest police stations in Toronto. Sirens are a constant reminder of my life in the “big city”.

I do not hear the roar of racing engines or the siren’s obnoxious wail as they fly up my street.

Yet, I do hear their silence if a long period is to pass between emergency runs. My subconscious essentially will say, “Hey Dann, I wonder why we are not hearing sirens?”

This perplexes me to no end. It seriously does.

Could it possibly be rooted in our genetic code?

In part, I believe, it is a protection mechanism.

Imagine what our lives would be like if we were constantly aware of the roar of societal coexistence.

That would be more than the human mind is capable of understanding.

We would all be inflicted with severe “PTSD”. Beyond all doubts.

Our minds would snap. Of this I am sure!

Ironically, Humans are the number one culprits of noise.

We are the only species that constantly manufactures noise just by going about the daily rituals of life as a group.

Think about that for a second.

The trains, planes and automobiles. Children running amuck in the schoolyards. Buses with the annoying robotic voice calling out each next stop. The chain smoker living upstairs on his balcony coughing up his lung each morning. The asshole next door continuously shouting obscenities at the people they love. The drunks staggering out of the Neighbourhood watering hole who seemed to have forgotten that the karaoke evening has ended. Dogs barking in hopes we humans stop with the constant noise. Birds tweeting back and forth about how annoying we are. Those damn sirens and on top of all that ……..

“The ticking of my grandmother clock”.

*****

I shall leave you now with this classic lyric …

“Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk to you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left it’s seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence”