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My life has been a search for quiet for as long as I can remember. I think the fundamental problem with noisy people is not that they're inconsiderate, but tha

• deleted 14y ago
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• thaumaturgy 14y ago
  I keep late hours in part because, once everyone else goes to bed -- not just housemates but my entire town -- everything becomes still and quiet, and in that stillness I'm finally able to think more deeply, more clearly, about anything. You've probably already had your fill of argument for the day, but I think that assuming that noisy people don't have a train of thought to interrupt is a little bit uncharitable. (I'm assuming the best interpretation of what you said, which is that they don't have a train of thought while they're being noisy.) I've met enough people who can think and consider things while maintaining a non-stop chatter that now I think it's just another of those quirks of personality: I require solitude to think about things, they do not.
  • furyofantares 14y ago
    This reminds me of an anecdote from Feynman about what sorts of mental things he could and could not do while counting seconds, and how it was different for different people. His counting was internally verbal and he could do anything that didn't require him to speak or anything else that was internally verbal. On the other hand, a mathematician he knew was able to do lots of mental things while counting that Feynman couldn't, and wasn't able to do other mental things while counting that Feynman could, because the other guy counted visually. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y#t=101s https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&...
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    • mdonahoe 14y ago
      Feynman is great. After reading about this a few years ago, I spent a few minutes trying to teach myself how to count with other senses, like touch or taste. I picked an ordering of foods and imagined the transition from one to the next. Touch is easier, since the ordering is already there. Just look at your fingers and imagine a sensation in each finger as you count. Easiest is to actually move your fingers though.
      • kragen 14y ago
        Touch is also much faster than visual or audio. With Chisenbop, I can count at around 15Hz, which is faster than I can look at the things I am trying to count.
    • agumonkey 14y ago
      Ha, I never tried to count visually, it's funny. I also tried to think about number names sequentially trying not to drift in their other representations.
    • bonobo 14y ago
      Some nights, when I lay on my bed trying to sleep but my mind is still racing, I try to calm down by counting or something that requires concentration in order to forget everything else. I noticed how I cannot count without having another train of thought talking or replaying a song I was listening to the same day. It's like having two threads running in parallel. Trying to count visually is almost impossible, I lose track before reaching twenty. As a friend of mine put this, “I can't count sheep to sleep because they are always cheating.”
      • philsnow 14y ago
        Have you tried thinking about the process of breathing ? Ask yourself, "how do I know I am breathing?": there is some physical sensation that tells you that you're breathing, whether it's a whistling noise in your nose, the feeling of air rushing past the tip of your nose or the back of your throat, the feeling of wanting to return to the neutral position that your ribs give you during a deep breath. For a lot of people, just one of these sensations is the most dominant one. If you can pick one, just lie quietly and concentrate on it and notice it every time you take a breath. This process is more about noticing sensation than doing any kind of cognition, so I find it very useful when trying to take a mid-day nap (I haven't had trouble sleeping at the end of the day since I had children, funny that).
  • fusiongyro 14y ago
    My mother is a pretty deep thinker and she requires constant TV chatter simply because she has tinnitus and can't stand the sound of it. But I think she's an exception.
    • anthonyb 14y ago
      Have you introduced her to brown noise? I typically use it for blocking out background sounds when I'm tired of listening to music, but it might work well for tinnitus too.
      • fusiongyro 14y ago
        Haven't heard of it before actually. Thanks!
      • devb 14y ago
        There seem to be two very different definitions of brown noise.
    • gordonguthrie 14y ago
      I have tinnitus and needs background noise - but to be non interuptive it has to be background - a coffee bar, or the telly on low - what it can't require is any processing like music or something that is designed to be 'listened to'.
  • jsolson 14y ago
    My office at work is a virtually silent team room. All of my coworkers are exceptionally quiet people. It drives me mad. Most days I spend my entire productive workday in a coffee shop across campus, precisely because it is loud and busy. Only with the surrounding noise can I avoid being distracted by specific things. The environment is so noisy that it allows me to ignore to entirely.
    • zellyn 14y ago
      My wife is the same way: she works best in a coffee shop, with background noise. My hypothesis is that people who are able to multitask (ie. not me) need a certain level of stimulation to absorb the attention that would otherwise crystallize into distractions. For me, when I'm able to concentrate, the background noise is irrelevant. I simply do not hear it.
      • stephengillie 14y ago
        When the ambient sound level gets too low, I get a strange feeling in my ear -- kinda like a hand or leg "falling asleep". It's really distracting. White noise, and ambient "study" music is great -- it's like a null placeholder, I can focus and I remember hearing nothing instead of hearing silence.
      • scott_s 14y ago
        There's something to this, but there's also the fact that any given sound gets literally lost in the noise.
        • sturadnidge 14y ago
          That's exactly what it is, for me at least. The slightest noise of something other than nature is enough to throw me completely, the best I can do living in a city is to work in an environment where the background noise has a masking effect. It's either no noise or a constant background drone loud enough to mask any single interrupting sound - anything in between is unworkable for me. As much as I love the mountains and forests, I've come to realise that I like the idea of solitude a lot more than the reality of it. And so I find myself living in large cities, constantly seeking noise because it's the only way I can find peace.
  • SiVal 14y ago
    I'm with pg here on the endless search for silence as well as your use of late nights to find it. I have sound-blocking ear muffs scattered all over the house and in two backpacks for when I'm studying on campus at Stanford, because at Stanford "quiet study area" seems to be an oxymoron. Studying, like everything at Stanford, is a social event. One disturbing phenomenon I've discovered: When I use these ear muffs to block other people's noise, I gradually get more sensitive to their noise. My brain gets weaker at filtering out the distractions if I go too long without practice. I discovered that I had to force myself to NOT artificially block the noise for a few hours every few days to maintain an ability to block out the distraction in circumstances where I was UNABLE to artificially block the noise. Resistance to noisy distraction is a perceptual skill that can atrophy without practice.
    • mgkimsal 14y ago
      noticed this 110% percent - I started wearing earplugs pumping whitenoise a few years back to help sleep - I need these things all the time now - I have whitenoise running probably 18 hours per day now (except when I'm driving).
      • bstpierre 14y ago
        I think the opposite is also true. I became able to sleep through nearly anything (nearly including, unfortunately, 4am fire alarms and, more fortunately, 4am wrong-numbers) in the dorms at college, where it was noisy nearly all the time.
      • Cthulhu_ 14y ago
        I would imagine that exposing yourself to noise (on high volume?) 18 hours a day would cause permanent hearing damage.
        • mgkimsal 14y ago
          18 is possibly the high end, but probably 6-8 per day, plus sleeptime, and it's never 'loud'. I've wondered about hearing loss, but I've done it for a few years now and have not noticed any loss (what did you say?) ;)
  • agumonkey 14y ago
    This feeling is disturbingly good. I remember my shift being offseted at work for I was always late, as a side effect I had to enjoy 1 hour alone at 5pm, the second people left the workplace, my brain expanded out of my suddenly relaxed self. As if I could use the walls as extended mind storage.
  • rdl 14y ago
    For the same reason, I wake up early (0200-0300 or so) because most tech people are likely to work late, so waking up early and doing stuff from 0400-1000 or so is functionally the same as staying up late.
• georgeorwell 14y ago
  Carrying a lively conversation, possibly one with lots of laughter, actually involves paying a lot of attention: to the things people are saying, to their body language, to their feelings, to your own feelings, to the appropriateness of what you're saying, to the way that you're saying it, to thoughts that you have that you want to express but perhaps can't, and to the timing of things, particularly in the case of making jokes. It hopefully even involves paying attention to whether or not you're annoying people who aren't part of the conversation. As someone who prefers absolute solitude for reading and writing, I can be very introverted, and I completely understand wanting things to be quiet. However, I think it's mistaken to assume all noisy people don't have any train of thought to interrupt. I think it's just as possible to be mindfully extroverted as it is to be mindlessly introverted. As for percentages and stuff, I'm at a loss; my bias is to assume mindlessness is more common than mindfulness regardless. I guess the difference is that mindless extroversion tends to be more obvious than mindless introversion.
• namank 14y ago
  Agree with the sentiment but how do you account for the noisy ones being smart (processing their thoughts) if they don't have any train of thought to interrupt is true?
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• charleshaanel 14y ago
  There's nothing like the quietude of considered thought - sometimes it was one's only escape amidst gunfire...
• pasbesoin 14y ago
  I've come to view it as an aspect -- even if unconscious -- of competition. The noisy folks tend to be a lot less effective (in particular, I mean those who chatter half the day away, and whose mistakes I was constantly fixing). But... with their noise and disregard for my own concentration, they dragged down my effectiveness. (And my peace of mind and ultimately, health.) One reason I now advocate -- strongly -- removing oneself from such environments as soon as possible. I received a strong, sustained, and somewhat domineering message that I was the one who needed to adapt. And, being young and inexperienced and without much power, this caused both some significant self-doubt and great frustration. I can't make up what I lost. But I can advise others to avoid similar loss.
• VexXtreme 14y ago
  I am the same way. I always find it perplexing how most people can't spend literally 10 minutes in complete silence with their own thoughts without getting anxious. I notice this mostly with the younger generation these days (young women especially). They literally feel the compulsion to always have some sort external stimuli coming in, usually in the form of a constant stream of music from their phones/MP3 players. I remember most of my ex girlfriends being like this, they could rarely be alone with their own thoughts for more than a few minutes. I genuinely think that a lot of people are afraid of introspection and quiet these days, in fear of what they might find if they look inside themselves or just absorb the world around them in an unprocessed and unaltered fashion. It is just easier to shut down any self reflection our minds might attempt with a constant stream of junk stimulation from the outside. ADD is becoming a huge problem these days and people's attention spans just keep getting shorter and shorter.
  • esharef 14y ago
    "young women especially" really?
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    • tsotha 14y ago
      That's the pattern I've noticed as well.
    • PKop 14y ago
      Should he disregard his observations because it offends your sensibilities?
      • bonaldi 14y ago
        No, he should disregard them because as written they're sexist, and don't even have good methodology to try and stand in their defense. His confirmation bias is one thing, the assertion that these women "literally feel a compulsion" that he hasn't justified is another thing entirely.
• tsotha 14y ago
  I've often wondered what I in particular and my group in general could accomplish if we had a quiet place to think at work.
• kkihara 14y ago
  Am I supposed to take understand that it's okay to be condescending and dismissive if you're pg and not anyone else? I'm really shocked no one else has called him out on this. Normally I see people jumping all over comments like this. Is HN such a cult of personality? Everyone, even "ordinary" or "normal" people have their trains of thought and to belittle them by suggesting otherwise...
  • corporalagumbo 14y ago
    Valley-style entrepreneur culture seems to feature quite a generous serving of self-aggrandising ass-hattery. Is it really any wonder the king of Hackernews has a good few scoops on his plate?
  • MrMan 14y ago
    HN is indeed a cult of personality. Perhaps you would be better served by chiming in with your anecdote that shows how you too are exceptional in the same way as pg.
  • redcircle 14y ago
    The article primed us for a bitch fest. I came to the comments expecting it. So in this one case, for the therapeutic effects that come from getting shit off your chest, I expected and overlooked the belittling and pretension; maybe others did too. I think that one's perception of quiet is affective --- quiet is relative, and at some point you'll just hear your heart beat, and so there is something else at play here to make everyone so angry about noise --- and these reactions to noise show a degree of misanthropy, which is confirmed by the comments.
• shanelja 14y ago
  My trick is to use http://rainymood.com http://rainymood.com - the background noise of a storm is surprisingly peaceful.
  • precisioncoder 14y ago
    Thanks for this, my office is often loud and constant music gives me headaches or distracts me so I'm always excited to find some alternatives.
    • shanelja 14y ago
      Sorry for the late reply - You're most welcome, my girlfriend showed me this 6 months ago and I'm a convert now, to the point where I find it difficult to concentrate without it and I have to keep my window open at night or everything just feels wrong. I hope you enjoy it, I know I for one find it hard to focus with music in my ears, I've even tried Beethoven at one point but nothing gave me the right vibe.
  • anthonyb 14y ago
    I usually turn the thunder and lighting on and listen to this too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTVraVgzC9U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTVraVgzC9U Maybe not quite so peaceful :) Edit: My mistake, I'm normally on http://raining.fm/ http://raining.fm/
  • paufernandez 14y ago
    I cannot even tolerate rain... I need noise: http://simplynoise.com/ http://simplynoise.com/
  • gadders 14y ago
    I listen to bird song, as it makes me think I'm outside in the Summer Time: http://www.birdsongradio.com http://www.birdsongradio.com
  • ganley 14y ago
    ... with noise-canceling headphones. I just discovered these a couple of years ago, and I was - am still! - positively shocked at how well they work.
• bambax 14y ago
  > I think the fundamental problem with noisy people is (...) that they don't have any train of thought to interrupt I'm not sure I understand what you're saying: are you saying that noisy people don't think (or are stupid)? I'm a "quiet one" too, but I think noisy people are the opposite of "thinkless"; they appear to be afraid of their own mind and what it could tell them about the insignificance of the world in general and their life in particular (anyone's life). What they want is distraction; they use noise as a lid over an even more tumultuous and noisy torrent of depressing thoughts.
  • tehayj 14y ago
    Many people are addicted to stimuli in whatever form because they do not want to be left alone with their thoughts. Some just turn on the TV whenever they are alone, some have to socialize and can't stand being alone, others do drugs. Time alone in the nature or meditation is quite the opposite and something I would wish those stimuli seeker would experience more often.
    • __david__ 14y ago
      > Time alone in the nature or meditation is quite the opposite and something I would wish those stimuli seeker would experience more often. Why? That assumes that being alone with your own thoughts is somehow good for everyone. I've done it--it's not all it's cracked up to be, IMHO. I believe there's enough variation in the way people's brains are wired up that it's not really possible to say "this specific thing that works for me is also good for your own mood/well-being/thoughts". I don't feel mentally stimulated by sitting around in nature or by meditating. It doesn't "clear my head" or make me look at my life in a new interesting perspective. It doesn't calm me in any meaningful way or anything like that. I mostly just feel annoyed that I'm not getting something accomplished, whether that "something" is actively creative or passively consumptive (as much as something passively consumptive can be "accomplished"). If that kind of thing works for you, that's great! I'm sure I take great mental pleasure from things you consider meaningless :-).
      • FiloSottile 14y ago
• MrMan 14y ago
  I am able to maintain a deep level of concentration in any environment. My internal state is not my neighbor's responsibility. There is no noise, only music.
• Mordor 14y ago
  I don't agree at all - some people require stillness and quiet while others don't. My most creative moments have been drunk in the early hours with music full blast. Others in a quiet office with everyone gone home. If society has become louder, then that's the new morality, otherwise there would be 'noisy' carriages on an otherwise 'quiet' train ;-)
• Riesling 14y ago
  > noisy people is not that they're inconsiderate, but that they don't have any train of thought to interrupt I once have read an article about introverts vs. extroverts and the articles conclusion was that extroverts need to communicate with others in order to reflect on their ideas, while introverts tend to do reflection with themselves. So, according to this article, if you tell extroverts to be quiet you are actually interrupting their train of thoughts. Being an introvert myself, I would have never come to this conclusion on my own.
• corporalagumbo 14y ago
  Ordinary people can understand And so is the fundamental problem with quiet people that they're hyper-sensitive, judgemental assholes?
  • psweber 14y ago
    You are generalizing. Every group has assholes. Hyper-sensitive is probably closer to the truth.
    • corporalagumbo 14y ago
      No, actually I was mocking.
• shortlived 14y ago
  What an arrogant attitude. My wife has severe ADHD. You'll note the second part is "hyperactivity", this means she can have extreme focus in environments where I can barely think.
• shortlived 14y ago
  Paul - are you really this much of a prick? Were these people partying at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning? If so, then you have a point. Otherwise, can't you understand that some people like to have fun, like to listen to music, etc? And anyone not like yourself is ordinary???
• kemiller 14y ago
  Mine as well. I find the present startup culture to be extremely hostile to quietness, and I'm hoping I can lead a rebellion. Are there small still small tech companies that value deep, peaceful thought?
• anigbrowl 14y ago
  I must say pg, I am a bit baffled by this after Startup school; there were so many people at the reception on Friday evening that I went hoarse within 15 minutes of arriving. It was nice to be there but almost impossible to hear what people were saying.
• duncan_bayne 14y ago
  Anecdotal, but: I can be noisy as a consequence of having a train of thought. Sometimes, for certain types of problem, I think best while talking out loud, waving my arms, and diagramming on a whiteboard. Not a quiet process but definitely underpinned by a train of thought.
• cafard 14y ago
  "I think the fundamental problem with noisy people is not that they're inconsiderate, but that they don't have any train of thought to interrupt, and they thus don't realize the havoc they're wreaking." A more polite, and perhaps more accurate rendering would be "Many noisy people work out what they think by saying it." To some of them the introvert who much prefers to think matters out before speaking may seem as thoughtless as they do to the introvert.