In exchange for the privilege of life, individuals in the modern world put up with ceaseless clamor. Not only noises but images, smells, tastes, perhaps even the warmth of others . . . all of it rushing at them in a mad free-for-all, each bit screaming its presence. And society, still unsatisfied, crammed in yet more, until one’s very sense of time was destroyed. It was unbearable, human exhaustion.
