The Joy of Quiet
The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in on in Las Vegas this week. It features all the latest “communication” devices aimed, presumably, to make life “better” for us. But do they?
An interesting article in ‘The New York Times’ published 29th December 2011 called ‘The Joy of Quiet’ by the essayist and novelist Pico Iyer, showed that some people are now paying up to US$2,285 a night to stay in a cliff-top room at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur partly for the privilege of not having a TV in their rooms, and that ‘black-hole” resorts charge high prices precisely because you can’t get online in their rooms!
Rather than being ‘online’ all the time what is being argued is the urgency of slowing down and to find the space to think. Pico quotes the French philosopher Blaise Pascal who wrote in the 17th century “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us of our miseries, and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.” He also famously remarked that all of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
You can read the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?pagewanted=all
Wishing you all a happy and fulfilled 2012.