Good luck finding stillness in the world. It seems that everywhere I go there is background noise. People wearing headphones, MUZAK (or is it MUSAK?) radio play, televisions and other such things as to keep us from enjoying a peaceful moment of solitude.
What are we afraid of?
Silence?

If I'm not mistaken, Muzak filed for bankruptcy recently, which maybe makes it the perfect analog for the false value of all the noise and clutter we seem conditioned to crave. Whether it's piped-in music or some other kind of useless noise, each represents a bankruptcy of sorts, I suppose.

Another great haiku. And I also like this conversation. I think most of us are afraid of the silence, which is something I used to think about all the time when I would hear “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode. The fact that so many of us need a filler for every second of our lives kind of proves something is missing.

We have that junk muzak at work. Every now and then the system goes down and my ears heave a sigh of relief. Somewhere, someone must have done a study that said productivity increased when this junk was played. With corporations looking to cut costs, that would be the first place I'd look.

PJ, we must be afraid of the silence. Eight out of ten people in my gym wear ear buds and carry a music device. One thing it does is tell me “I'm not interested in talking to you” and they're little world is more important than interacting with people. They wander around in a trance and generally have no idea of the world around them.

I think that's the part they like best.

“Their” little world. God, I hate when I do that. :-)