In Pursuit of Silence Page #2

bottom line...

- In race after race...

- Third card trick...

In race after race,

Democrats...

- When it comes to women.

- Winning over women...

There is such an intense,

overwhelming drive

to contribute our

little ricocheting response

to this soul-crushing din

of the moment.

- ...over me. You're not...

- (INDISTINCT)

- One of the specific plans...

- You're not gonna filibuster.

- I'm not going to let you do it.

- Ed, Ed, Ed!

Let me answer your question

you asked me earlier.

- (CONTINUES TALKING)

- I'll go back to this question.

PROCHNIK:

Throughout Japanese history,

there has been an appreciation

of softer, quieter

registers of being.

One of the most

signal instances of this

is really in relationship

to the tea ceremony.

One of the most

important masters, Sen Rikyu,

lived at a time

of incredible martial activity

among different samurai groups.

And part of his interest

in developing the tea ceremony,

in the ways that he did,

was to cultivate

an appreciation for silence

and silence's relationship

to a more

pacific environment

in general.

(SOKYU NARAI SPEAKING JAPANESE)

When guests entered

the tea room,

they would remove

their katana swords.

All of the participants

leave behind

their social status,

distinctions,

and other such concerns

when they enter the tea room.

The participants concentrate

on the moment,

finding awareness

of how each of them

is contributing to this

singular, living experience.

That is what's being experienced

amidst the silence

of the tea ceremony.

As a result,

there are no selfish desires

or thoughts of personal gain,

only the peaceful world

inside the tea room.

LEES:
Silence allows everybody

to have

equal platform and equal voice

because if nobody is talking,

nobody is dominating.

(RUSTLING)

JULIAN TREASURE:

Silence is a sound,

and I think it's a sound

with many qualities.

I think if we start to cultivate

an appreciation of silence

as the precious thing it is,

and enjoy it

for a few minutes a day,

then it gives us a proper

relationship with sound,

with noise, with our own sound.

It allows us to be

much more balanced

in the way that we

relate to the world,

much more conscious.

PROCHNIK:
When we throw

around the term of silence,

we may, in the first instance,

imagine that we're seeking

some kind of absolute quiet,

but very, very few people

look for that.

What we're looking,

I came to believe,

is really more for a kind

of balance in our environment.

It's the particular balance

of sound and quiet

that maximizes our perceptual

awareness of where we are.

(MAKING BIRD CALLS)

Sounds a little bit like

one of those toys you see,

and you shake it,

and it's like a little...

(IMITATES RATTLING)

Kind of like that sort of a...

(VOCALIZES)

Kind of one of those...

(BIRD CHIRPING)

Well, probably should

leave him be, I suppose.

The first superintendent

of this park, Harry Karstens,

he was very aware

of the solitude

and quietude of this place.

And he had an interesting

quote in 1924,

when he said,

"There is much to learn

by those who understand

"the language of

the great silent places."

(FOOTSTEPS CRUNCHING)

(CRACKING)

Oftentimes, I make measurements

that can be as low as 13,

14 decibels in the wintertime.

And in the summertime, might be

in the 20-25 decibel range.

As the background

level decreases,

your listening area increases.

In a really still environment,

you've got this situation

where you're

very large, acoustically.

You can detect these very

minute sounds from far away

and it gives you

this incredible sense of space,

this openness.

So, you know,

we exist in the world,

and to be able to

explore that world

with an unbroken attention,

I think that's one of the things

that both silence,

and an intact soundscape,

protects that

sort of exploration.

(AIRPLANE APPROACHING)

(BIRD CAWING)

JULIE ZICKEFOOSE:

I guess I got hooked on birds

when I was about eight.

I heard the sound of a bird

bathing in a woods pool

behind my house in Virginia,

and I did sort of a jungle crawl

under all this catbrier

and I came out onto

this little blue-winged Warbler

bathing in a forest pool,

and it was the most

beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

I really like

being in quiet places

because I use my ears

for everything.

Primitive man,

if you didn't pay attention

to every little thing

around you,

you were going to be

in trouble really fast,

or you weren't going to

find anything to eat.

And I think, for me,

it's a question of

keeping in touch

with those primal instincts

and just always being ready

for whatever comes your way.

I call what I do

the art of disappearing.

It's a situational awareness,

it's a richness of being,

it's a tapping into

this great show

that's going on

all around you.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

(DISTANT CAWING)

There's that herring.

These very quiet environments

offer tremendous

opportunities for listening,

but they're also the most

fragile resources we have.

Certainly, the physical beings

we are,

we're built to function

in these places

and to hear

those distant sounds.

If we really lose touch

with our senses,

with our capacity

for deep listening,

I think we'll lose

a large piece of who we are,

certainly of the animals

we once were.

It's just like our muscles,

and if it happens over time,

across generations,

it may not be easily reversed.

To lose our connection with

the world through our senses,

I think would be

a terrible loss,

and everyone knows this.

I mean, the prospect

of being blinded or deafened

I think would be

terrifying to most people.

But in fact,

it may be happening

in a much more

subtle way already.

(VOICES TALKING ON SCREEN)

(MAN SPEAKING JAPANESE)

We humans lived in nature

for seven million years.

(SPEAKING JAPANESE ON SPEAKER)

(SPEAKING JAPANESE)

Following the

industrial revolution

modernization began

which led to urbanization.

Big cities like

Shibuya started to appear,

and at the same time, started to

create overwhelming noise.

Evolution even causes

our genes to change.

But this change doesn't occur

in just hundreds of years.

It's believed to take 10,000 to

30,000 years for this to happen.

In other words,

we're still carrying the genes

which allow us

to adapt to nature

while we are living in

this artificial modern world.

I believe

that humans originally,

from a genetic point of view

prefer silence.

We prefer this,

the silence of nature.

(INDISTINCT)

(INDISTINCT)

(YOSHIFUMI MIYAZAKI

SPEAKING JAPANESE)

Historically the forest

has been understood

simply as a "nice and

relaxing place to go"

based on our experience.

However, it's more than that.

It's preventive medicine.

The forest's healing effect

comes with the ability

to prevent illness.

(BOTH SPEAKING JAPANESE)

(MIYAZAKI SPEAKING JAPANESE)

It's not that it will

cure the illness,

but it will reduce stress and

strengthen the immune system,

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