Silence: In the Age of Noise

by Erling Kagge

Whenever I am unable to walk, climb or sail away from the world, I have learned to shut it out. Learning this took time. Only when I understood that I had a primal need for silence was I able to begin my search for it—and there, deep beneath a cacophony of traffic noise and thoughts, music and machinery, iPhones and snow ploughs, it lay in wait for me. Silence.

A lot of things in daily life boil down to wonder. It is one of the purest forms of joy that I can imagine. I enjoy the feeling. I often wonder, I do it almost everywhere: when travelling, reading, meeting people, when I sit down to write or whenever I feel my heart beat or see the sunrise. Wonder is one of the most powerful forces with which we are born. It is also one of our finest skills. Not only for an explorer like me: it holds just as much value for a father or for a publisher. I like it. Preferably without interruption.

The quieter I became, the more I heard.

The world disappears when you go into it, claimed the philosopher Martin Heidegger.

The next hardest challenge? To be at peace with yourself.

The most important thing, as an old Norwegian saying goes, is not how you are, but what you make of things. For me, silence in nature is of the highest value. That’s where I feel most at home. Still, if I hadn’t been able to experience stillness amid city life, my longing for silence would be too great and I would have needed to return to nature more often.

boredom theorist Blaise Pascal promoted this type of exploration as early as the 1600s: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

The present hurts, wrote Pascal. And our response is to look ceaselessly for fresh purposes that draw our attention outwards, away from ourselves.

We live in the age of noise. Silence is almost extinct.

Instead of elaborating about the years that came and went with a champagne flute in hand, we should turn rather to the stoic Seneca on twenty-first birthdays: “Life is long if you know how to use it.” Even if we were to live for a thousand years, our lives would feel short if we threw away the time we actually had at our disposal. We exist, but few of us actually live, argued Seneca two thousand years ago. “Life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future. When they come to the end of it, the poor wretches realize too late that for all this time they have been preoccupied in doing nothing.”

As I stood atop the Williamsburg Bridge, I felt deep pleasure inside me, watching the sun rise from the Atlantic Ocean to light up the city. If I were president, I would use my inaugural speech to challenge everyone to be thankful every time the sun rises and to show gratitude for all that it does for us.

Boredom can be described as a lack of purpose. According to the Norwegian philosopher Lars Fr. H. Svendsen, boredom always gives the feeling of being held captive. When I was young, waiting for something to happen, I got bored to the point where it was almost painful. My mother told me it was healthy to be bored. Only now do I understand what she meant. Today I observe my children when they think nothing is happening: bored to tears, imprisoned in themselves, almost desperate. Like my mother, I feel it would be best if they could experience that more often.

silence is the only need that those who are on the constant lookout for the latest luxury can never attain.

Silence has become part of the disparity that gives some few people the opportunity to have a longer, healthier, richer life than most others.

There are very few people who are able to avoid noise altogether. We learn to live with it because we think that we must, but noise is and remains a disturbing element that reduces our quality of life. Not only for people, but for animals as well.

Silence is a luxury for every living creature.