Silence is home. The sounds of what was made the same way you were. Religion, or science they have been forged by that which we do not understand. Some harmony lays in that knowledge, and it's the kinda harmony we never allow ourselves enough. It's in this place we have to be with our thoughts, the smiles, and the suppressed, why we make decisions, and what we want out of all this. It's the world of volatility in an existence shaped to sooth. To need to be deliberate about hearing the birds, the swaying of trees, or the croaking of the frogs. To watch something fly, something fight, and something create. At the same moment in front of us. How little we care for we have ourselves, and our inventions to look at. Our thoughts to share, and our hunger for yours.
What's it mean to look into the soul of oneself I do not know. To run from the desire to find out is my concern. We push ourselves towards productivity, and spend the time on that which can be measured. Measurement means little to the world, yet it seems to be incredibly good at doing it well. Creativity the likes of which we haven't seen. The Little Rock that could in all its beauty, and yet we run from it because we may need to confront ourselves. Even when the environment is right the music plays, the book is being read, or the conversation is being had. It's rarely with oneself and his home.
Somehow the latter half of the bargains we make with our time here. Almost like our collective hope is a renegotiation out of it. It's a thing to work for, and to care for, to hope for. It's the reason we do all this stuff, and yet we have traded it away. Bit by bit until bits ruled the world. All that instinct used to form a weapon lethal enough to capture all that human interest left to the individual. The willingness to weaponize our collective understanding of ourselves for ad sales. There's certainly some art, and beauty in all that, but it's a product of us. Not a product of that which is greater from which we come. The art, and beauty of it all stripped out for efficiency as time passes. You're no longer taking LSD at the grateful dead, but rather in the clinical confidants of a medical room evaluated by 10 people and your therapist by your side. Certainly more people are getting paid, and you're a bit safer at what cost though. You need to build the environment you feel safe in rather than find the comfort in everyone's journey. It's for them. Not for the experience. The cycle continues.
There's comfort in saying they did it. How someone subjected us to this world. It's the way it is because that's the way it is. It's bad bargaining we're doing. Bad enough to believe we're running from the payoff.
Reflections
What does it mean to deliberately hear the birds? To choose silence over the constant hum of our devices and the manufactured urgency of modern life? There's something fundamental here about presence versus distraction, about the difference between experiencing the world and consuming content about the world.
Consider the progression: taking LSD at the Grateful Dead versus a clinical setting with therapists and evaluators. More people getting paid, perhaps safer, but at what cost? When we optimize experience for safety and measurement, do we lose something essential about what makes it worth having?
The weaponization of human understanding for ad sales. Our collective knowledge of ourselves - all that psychology, all that data about what makes us tick - turned into a tool to capture our attention and sell it. We built this. It's not something done to us by others, it's something we're doing to ourselves.
What bargain have we actually made? We traded bit by bit until bits ruled the world. Each trade seemed reasonable at the time. Convenience for attention. Efficiency for experience. Connection for presence. But the cumulative effect? We're running from the very thing we claim to be working toward.