The Sound of Silence

There’s a famous song by Simon and Garfunkle with the same name as today’s post. If you don’t know it, you can listen to it here.

But why am I telling you that? Well, after my swim this morning, I was sitting in the sauna with my eyes closed, enjoying the heat and the silence.

Then I heard the door opening as someone came in, but I didn’t open my eyes. When this person sat down next to me, I could tell by the way the bench moved that he was a big guy, but I still kept my eyes shut. 

He didn’t speak, but now and again, I could hear a very small noise. It wasn’t all the time, just on and off. It was like a small fly was trapped behind the wall and was beating its wings trying to escape.

The noise wasn’t loud, but it was loud enough to annoy me, and it was annoying me because I couldn’t figure out what it was. So I decided to open my eyes.

I looked at the big guy next to me, and he was wearing waterproof headphones like the ones below in the sauna. I don’t know what he was listening to, though. It wasn’t music, so maybe it was a podcast.

Life today is very noisy: traffic, people having conversations face to face or on the phone, TV, radio, advertisements, muzak in supermarkets and lifts, the list goes on. Nowadays, it’s very hard to find silence unless you actually go looking for it.

Personally speaking, I like the silence in the sauna, but that’s just me. It calms me and helps me clear my mind. But if other people want to be different, that’s OK. The noise wasn’t a big deal, so live and let live is what I say.