Pockets of Quietness

Image by Tolu Akinyemi on Unsplash

A podcast from The Ezra Klein Show caught my eye over the weekend.  Titled “Your Mind is Being Fracked, ” Klein interviewed D. Graham Burnett about his scholarly research on attention.

From the NY Times description of the podcast:  “He (Burnett) argues that social media platforms and advertisers are “fracking” our attention—extracting increasingly marginal amounts of it by pumping increasingly shrill content into our information environments.”

Many of us feel this intuitively.  The noise we absorb these days is overwhelming.  So much so that quietness has become a highly-valued commodity in our world.  We now pay extra for quiet homes, quiet engines, quiet workplaces, quiet vacations, even quiet dishwashers.  Quiet Time has become a sought-after luxury.  

There’s a reason why people who devote their lives to an esoteric path sequester themselves to do the work.  Higher Wisdom is accessed through internal focus; stillness and quietness are required.

But what about the rest of us who don’t live in monasteries or ashrams or other places of devotion?  Those of us who have jobs and kids and parents and friends and responsibilities and budgets and payments and traffic and politics—the ongoing (and often challenging) elements of a life in our current world?  

We find the space and quiet where we can.

Maybe it’s driving without music or an audio book. Maybe it’s getting up early to be with the sun as it rises.  Maybe it’s going for a walk by yourself on your lunch hour rather than eating with your colleagues or at your desk.  Maybe it’s sitting in quiet at the end of the day instead of watching TV.


When we’re on the spiritual path, spaces of quiet are mandatory—especially in our noisy, busy lives.

In quietness, we connect with our own heart and guidance system.

In quietness, we are the true Self we know ourselves to be when no one is else is watching.

In quietness, we reset ourselves to our own frequency.  


As The Grandmothers often say: “Be in and of your own frequency so that we can find you there.”