Enjoy the Silence-if you can find any

I read an article recently about how one man out West somewhere has laid out in little triangulations areas of complete natural silence. These are places in remote areas of our country's geography in which one can sit and hear absolutely no manmade noise. In a nutshell, the article states how difficult these places are to locate, because of our manufactured noises and because of the far reaches one must go to find them. The article went on to list how during our industrial age and our modern age, people are getting more stressed out due to the constant high decibles that we live with everyday, in home and out in the world. Every single thing one hears in a day, is most likely not natural. On top of that fact, is that we listen to things such as vacuum cleaners, washing machines, and radios without stopping to remove ourselves from that sound, in fact we turn music up, we like loud cars and boats, we like loud concerts, we talk louder to hear each other over outside noise all the time. My husband and I use to call this "bar deafness" and it's very common. It is medically proven that our modern noisemaking actually hurts our brains, and makes heart rates increase dramatically.
I sat outside today for a few minutes in our quiet neighborhood. I heard birds, the wind, and my dog sighing in the heat. Then, I heard the garbage truck picking up lawn trash, cars pulling into driveways, people talking in their backyards, and a distant phone ringing. It's true- I won't find that quiet spot here.
Make it your mission to find your own special quiet place- no soft new age music, no typing on the keyboard while you sit in your quiet home, no just turning off the television...but really pay attention on day to the noise around your body. Give yourself a long chance to hear yourself breathe, think and just be in total silence. It's not meditation - it's living in the world as it was before 1900, before phones, trolleys, mass electricity, televisions and high-rises.
Listen for the real things. They are there- under all our other distractions.