The Confessions of an Insom{a}niac XVIII - It is oh, so quiet...

Yes. Not a sound to be heard except my PC humming now and then. It's so quiet in my flat right now, in fact, it's real quiet in my building right now.

I have to confess that for the first time in months, I actually feel quiet and relaxed. And it's not even 10 pm. I just got out of the bathtub feeling all fresh and squeaky clean. An incense is burning by my window. My whole flat {and probably the whole floor} smells like an Indian temple or an ashram.

I'm loving this. The quietude in my flat, in my whole building. I wish it was like this every night. The quietude filling my senses and leaving me drunk with something short of bliss all night. And the feeling will linger on till the morning I wake up.

I just realized that I am living a"noisy" life. I am surrounded by noise 24/7. Cellphones, computers, TV, radio, cars, buses, taxis, airplanes, audio players, hi fi's, lo fi's, home entertainment systems, alarms, plastics, metals, wood, paper, office machines, household appliances, buildings, footsteps, chatter, arguments and negotiations, shouts and whispers, work, pubs, nightclubs... everything, produces a certain vibration. A sonorous reverberation of something that echoes the unnatural. I even find eating and sleeping is "noisy" sometimes. It's all a part of living nowadays, noise. I guess noise is one among the many things that humanity has to pay in exchange for modernity. The comforts of Urbania, from the can opener to the supercomputers are never free. They all come with a price tag that is not payable in any legal tender. Yet we pay for it every single heartbeat. Silence has become a luxury for us city dwellers. The world has become one noisy place because of man and his incessant need to modernize.

Even the aliens probably hear the noise that we make from outer space. Sometimes I wonder what they think of us. Maybe they think that we talk too much. That we rarely think things through before we act. That we have too much bravado as a race but not enough {com}passion as a society. Or perhaps, they're also the same, these green , purple, red, yellow, { insert any color here } beings from another planet. Perhaps, they too, are a race of beings that thrive and live and capitalize on noise.

Today was a noisy day for me. It started with my alarm ringing, followed by my cellphone. Then I do my morning absolutions. Then I work. Then I had to move some of my things {mostly books and other stuff} to my new flat downtown {which is 5 times noisier than the present area where I am at}. Then I answer phone calls again. Computer. Work. Taxi. Food. Then I clean up my flat. Then I am annoyed by the obnoxious hotel guests housed on my floor who happen to like shouting at each other's faces for no apparent reason. Phone. Internet. Water dripping. Washing machine. Phone.

This in fact, was just a usual day for me. Except for the obnoxious hotel guests on my floor, I live this life everyday. I am not complaining, mind you. I am just being observant. The quiet that I am experiencing now is one of those rare and precious occasions that I selfishly crave for sometimes. The auspicious silence in my flat gives me an opportunity to be still and to slow down and even to stop and think. I remember that credit card commercial about some things in life that money just can't buy. This is definitely one of those, priceless moments. The irony is that I don't even own a credit card.

I remember back when I was a bit younger. There was a time when I lived on a hill not far from Urbania. In fact, the only thing that separated me from the metropolis was this huge lake. It was just hours away from the city but it was like a totally different world up on that hill. I was surrounded by mango trees and frogs and lizards and snakes and God knows what. I used to live almost everyday waking day of my life in such quietude that the silence and stillness became noise apparent. There were times, back then when I used to really dislike the stillness around me. Sometimes I would go down the hill and take the next bus to the nearest city so I could breathe the fresh carbon emissions and just eat real food {fast food}. I needed to escape the quiet, the trees and frogs and the fresh air. Right now, in precious and quiet moments like these, I remember that year when I lived on that hill surrounded by mango trees and frogs. I get that funny feeling inside whenever I think about that hill. I guess it's nostalgia or probably a mild case of ulcer or heartburn. My memorable moments on that hill was the rooftop. At night, I would go up the rooftop to go for a quick smoke. I would sit and admire the lake and city skyline in front of me. Urbania is pretty from afar and so still. She was pretty, Urbania. Pretty she may be, but was more mesmerized by the sky above me. The night sky from the rooftop was beautiful. Stars would bathe me and bless me. I would lie on the concrete roof and look at the night sky and just admire it for hours. It was beautiful and sacred. It was something that I can never find across the lake.

I grew up on that hill. I wrote poems there. I burned most of them after a year. But I sometimes find reciting the lines in my head. I came up there as a boy and I came down a young man. The quietude on that hill taught me a lot things. Things, that I still carry until today. I am reminded of that hill whenever I have quiet moments like these. I am reminded of the stars above me and how mesmerized I was upon seeing those thousands upon thousands of gigantic balls of gases burning for eons suspended in space and outliving time itself. I am reminded of Urbania in front of me, beckoning me to come and embrace her. She looked so quiet and still from afar. Now after all all those years, after embracing Urbania and all that she held and possess, I look outside my window and I realize that I am at the other side of the lake {although there is no lake}. I look up to the night sky and wait for her blessing. I am not even waiting for her to bless me, just some some semblance of recognition will do. Through my window I look up and wait. But I see no stars.