The cursor blinks, eggs me on, taunts and teases: you should write something… you haven’t written in a while.
In my head I’m thinking I’ve been quiet, haven’t had much to say. It’s been weeks of status quo (need a job, hang out at bar, go to cultural events, sit on benches, take walks) mixed with my usual indignations (hate AI and capitalism and inconsiderate people and so many facets of modern society).
One day, during a moment of reflection after waking up ungodly early (3:30am), I realize that I was literally quiet for the entire preceding day. I ran through what I remembered of the day. Nope, I didn’t speak a word: no phone calls, no meetings, no niceties at the corner market or grocery store. I skipped the bar, and when I saw people I knew walking in my neighborhood, I waved my hello from a distance instead of saying it. Any conversation I thought I had, was actually a text or email. Do those count? While I didn’t feel worse for it, I began to wonder if that’s a bad thing – to not use one’s voice at all (other when I’m talking to myself).
That was a week ago.
When I get the chance, I like to take walks in the morning. If I can squeeze in five miles, I do it. Often, when I take these longer walks (especially if they’re along the waterfront), I’ll skip the earbuds and the music. I want to hear the waves and the birds. Skipping the music also means hearing all of the other people out running or walking. On this morning’s walk, it meant hearing a runner approach from behind, hock up and spit twice – kinda gross. He did the same thing going the other direction. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve spit while on a run. This guy? I thought, “maybe you should get that checked out.”
Without my earbuds in, I catch a lot of snippets of conversations. Among younger people (20s and 30s) they’re often about work (promotions or layoffs), travel, or relationships (weddings, babies, dating, breakups, or moving in together). Among people a little older, they’re still about work and they’re still about relationships, but they seem much more fraught with tension (employee/colleague tension, divorces, illnesses, etc.). Among even older people, the language softens. Those conversations become about traveling to see the kids and grandkids or activities they’re participating in.
As an eavesdropper, I feel uncomfortable with the tense conversations. You can hear it in their tone and the language they choose. They tend to drop more F bombs. There tends to be more indignation. Today, I heard a woman talking on the phone say, “I need to say, ‘I want YOU to act a certain way.'” Often, I want to say, “just let it go, man.” The other day I heard two men talking and one said, “He leaves his phone at different hotels. His wife tries to track him. He doesn’t do anything bad, bad.” That doesn’t sound great.
It’s often on these walks while overhearing conversations that I’ll think about, and be thankful for, how quiet my life is. I have very little drama professionally or personally. But, I also think about how few people I interact with on a daily basis and how that probably cuts down on the drama. Nearly all of my strife is internal wrangling over big issues as opposed to interpersonal squabbles. Even so, I’d probably have fewer internal struggles if I scrolled a little less and read fewer headlines.
Maybe it’s the season, but “being quiet” has manifested in a shrinking back, holing up sort of way. I’ve been tempted to cancel social obligations, skip concerts for which I already have tickets, write less, share less. I’ve also been reading a lot about privacy breaches, AI, and government surveillance. That sort of news makes me want to get off the grid or at least be less public – which is a wild contrast from living in one of the more “connected” cities in the world.
The cursor still blinks. I think I’ll lean into the quiet.