I was lying in bed, getting ready to go to sleep, when I began thinking about the noise.
The television will often be on, though I’m barely watching it. Sometimes it’s music, though I couldn’t tell you what song just played. There is simply something in the background, filling the room while I settle into the end of the day.
And it occurred to me to wonder why I wanted it there.
When everything gets quiet, my thoughts tend to get louder. I begin looking back over the day. What I accomplished. What I still need to do. The decisions I made and the people those decisions affected. How I treated someone. Whether I really listened.
There is always something waiting for my attention once the distractions have settled.
A television makes it easy to step away from those thoughts. A commercial comes on. Someone says something that catches my attention. I follow a conversation between people who don’t exist, and for a few minutes, I stop examining the conversations I actually had.
Which, at the end of a long day, can be a relief.
I don’t think every waking moment needs to be spent becoming a better person. Sometimes I’m tired, and a little background noise is simply comfortable. I can allow myself that.
But lying there, I realized the sound does something else, too. It covers what is happening outside the room. The noises beyond my own little space become harder to hear. Whatever is happening around me recedes behind whatever I’ve chosen to turn on.
The same sound can keep me from listening inward and listening outward.
That was the thought that stayed with me.
How much of my life happens with something playing in the background?
There are the obvious things: television, music, the phone within reach. Then there is the running list in my head, the next obligation, the thing I’m already preparing to say while someone else is still speaking.
I can be standing in front of another person and have an entire day’s worth of noise between us.
After so many years of working with people, I know how much can be carried in a pause. Someone hesitates. An answer comes a little too quickly. A conversation seems finished, but the person hasn’t quite turned to leave.
There may be something more there.
I wonder how often I miss it because my attention has already moved on.
The world certainly gives us plenty to listen to. Some of it matters. Some of it is simply loud. Some of it has been made loud for the very purpose of holding our attention. And sometimes I cooperate willingly because paying attention to that is easier than sitting with whatever is asking something of me.
A question I haven’t answered. A conversation I need to have. A feeling I haven’t quite found words for.
I don’t imagine I’m going to become someone who spends every evening sitting contentedly in a silent room. I know myself well enough to leave that ambition alone.
But I would like to become more aware of what I’m turning on, and what it might be covering up.
Perhaps I could leave a few minutes unfilled. Let a thought finish without reaching for something to interrupt it. Give someone enough of my attention to hear what comes after the first answer.
There are good things waiting in that space, too. In the quiet, I might remember a kindness I rushed past or recognize something about the day that deserves gratitude. Looking at my life doesn’t have to mean finding something wrong with it.
It might mean noticing how much of it I want to be present for.
Lying there, I had started with a small question about why I like the television on at bedtime. I ended up wondering what else I might hear if I let the room be quiet for a while.
I think I’d like to find out.
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