Primer: How I Learned To Find Calm In A Chaotic World
One writer on learning to slow down and seek out silence
A couple of years ago I came to a realisation – that ever since I first left Brisbane in the late 1990s, when I was posted to New York as a foreign correspondent for News Corp, I’d been rushing.
Rushing to get to work, rushing to get home. Rushing to answer emails, answer the phone, answer my colleagues and my boys. Rushing to get lunch to eat at the desk. Rushing to the ladies’ room because I’d been ignoring the call of nature for the last three hours of back-to-back meetings.
I was stuck on this express train called my successful life, and the best I could do was catch glimpses of their faces as I rushed past their social media platforms: ‘Facebook, Instagram . . . next stop Twitter.’
I’d love to say that I had a light-bulb moment as the noise peaked, when I finally understood that what I needed was silence. It would be great to describe a blinding flash of clarity in which I recognised that my growing distress was a manifestation of a thwarted need to be more present for those I cared about most: my ailing father, my sons, Peter and the rest of my family and friends.
Unfortunately, enlightenment tends to be a messier and blurrier process than that bright, crisp word enlighten suggests.
Instead over the next few years, I began seeking out ways to find calm and clarity. I attended a transformative 10-day silent meditation retreat, where I surrendered my laptop, phones and writing materials. I investigated the health effects of environmental noise, and examined the multitude of ways in which our mobile phones are designed to be addictive. I learned to meditate.
Last year, I turned those experiences into a book Turning Down The Noise, exploring how the fast pace of modern life affects our brains, our lives and our communities.
As my book went to press, the COVID-19 pandemic was sweeping the planet.
But while our lives have slowed in some regards, the noise has continued, taking new forms as well as those more familiar: angst and rumour-mongering on social media; angry finger-pointing and blame games from commentators; increased stress for those without work, and anxiety for children tackling home schooling; the rising volume of life at close quarters for extended periods of time. Quite soon, it became apparent to me that silence would be as valuable as ever as we navigate this uncertain new landscape.