SOUND OF SILENCE WORDS FROM HUB

Hi, I’m Fiona’s hub, or I believe that’s my handle in blogget terms.
As I have a few days off work, I thought I would take the strain and
write a blog for your delectation.

Have you ever wondered what, in the words of Simon and Garfunkel “the
sound of silence” is really like? Those of you reading this in the
wilds of Canada or the deepest bush of Australia may have experienced
something close to the true sound of silence, but I would like to bet
it was punctuated by the snap of a twig, breath of a bird or a sound
so quiet you’re struggling to identify it even now.

There are very few places in the UK where you might experience the
true sound of silence. I actually wrote “enjoy” and deleted that…read
on… The highlands of Scotland, wild moor in Devon or the beautiful
Yorkshire dales might be such places but the infamous car will never
be that far away.

I remember visiting a sheep station in West Australia where the
nearest house was some 10 miles away. When the generator was shut
down for the night, the silence closed in like a mist, but even here,
the movement of some unseen animal, the ghost of a breeze over burnt
grasses or the drip of a micro droplet of water forming a carpet of
dew fractured the stillness of absolute peace.

I have only once experienced true silence and, as with so many things,
it was manufactured in the most precise manner by our friends in
Japan. I visited a leading technology company renowned for its
precision and attention to achieving perfection. They have devised an
Anechoic chamber – an environment entirely free from echo – so that
they can, in the words of their chief engineer, “establish absolute
and complete silence.” I asked if it would be possible to experience
this and was surprised by the amount of head scratching this
engendered. Engineers eventually agreed to let me in to the chamber
but only on the understanding that I would raise my hand to be let out
if I felt any degree of distress. In the words of a song, mad dogs and
Englishmen stay out in the midday sun, and, in the eyes of my Japanese
colleagues, mad Englishmen obviously want to go in to such chambers as
well!

My seemingly innocent request now making me a little nervous, I
stepped in to the box….

Set out as a small studio with contraptions designed to precisely
drop, throw, heat and shock test almost anything, the chamber had
enough space for 2 people plus equipment being tested. As the 1000 KG
door closed with an almost imperceptible click, a smile crossed my
face as the cling-film of silence closed in. I thought this must be
it, absolute silence, what an experience, but wait… I could hear a
hum, the very distant sounds of a factory beyond, a world separated
from me by steel and glass. Surely there must be some mistake as they
would not spend hundreds of thousands of whatever currency on such a
poor environment.

The process of achieving absolute silence involved establishing a
pressurised air zone around the inner part of the chamber, removing
all reverberation and any form of acoustic imperfection. As this
process commenced, I could feel the silence pressing in on my ears,
almost like a physical yet unseen presence. As you strain to hear but
hear nothing, anything that was once certain becomes uncertain,
especially for someone such as myself who relies on hearing for so
much. Was that a sound or my mind playing a trick? Did I hear a voice
or voices in my head!

Within about 3 minutes, I could hear absolutely nothing beyond my own
heart, blood pumping rather frighteningly through my ears and the
holding of my own breath. As I moved, I became aware that I was
worryingly disoriented, not able to rely on layers of sound I use
without even realising it. Even finding a wall from the middle of a
ridiculously small room was like walking through thick air, every
movement deliberately slow and exaggerated.

The sound of silence rapidly became the sound of panic and I raised my
hand to be let out in to a familiar world of sound I pray I will never
ever leave. Just as a sighted person can never experience blindness,
I am thankfully unable to experience deafness but this venture brought
me uncomfortably close to it.

Maybe it’s not the sound of silence for which we often crave but the
sound of peace, with a degree of familiarity to help us relax. As I
discovered, absolute silence might be frightening, but the sound of
peace punctuated by a friendly ticking clock, a distant murmur of
loved voices or the sound of our own thoughts sets us at rest.