An important part of this MKMMA experience is to sit still and quiet for 15 minutes or so and think about an assigned thought or idea. This can be a challenge to the newcomer. How many people today take time to be quiet and think? Yet it is quite a rewarding experience.
Recently I was thinking about all of the wonderful inventions we have available today. For me a calculator was amazing when they first came out. Look at all that we have now! When I began my working career I became a Computer Programmer. PC’s had not yet been created. We used a green screen and could not even see what we were editing. It had to be printed out, reviewed and fixed. This was an improvement to the punch cards I used in College! Heaven forbid you dropped that pile of cards!
As I considered the advancements in technology it occurred to me that our world has become so much noisier because of it. Teens walk around with music blasting in their ears. You can hear their music because they play it so loud.
TV’s are everywhere. In stores, banks, restaurants, you name it. When you walk through the mall there is music in the halls as well as in the stores and sometimes you hear both at the same time!
Just this morning I had the TV on to hear the weather report on the news. (Who hasn’t had enough of this winter?) After a short while I had to turn it off as they talk so fast and loud.
I found this quote by Jean Arp that says it all:
Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation…. Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.
Let’s take time to be silent, enjoy the peace and think!