There is never any silence in our house. Someone, somewhere is watching a TikTok video or there’s music thumping in one of the rooms or there’s the snippets of bad music blasting from an Instagram feed. It’s never quiet. There’s never silence.
Yesterday it was a little chilly when I sat in the gazebo playing around on my iPad. I was reading about various subjects and occasionally the silence was broken by an airplane flying over head as they departed the local Air Force Base or the coyotes would rustle in the wash. I didn’t find these sounds distracting.
As I get older I find that I can’t manage distractions as well as I used to when I was younger. I’ve never been good at managing distractions. My ability to tune out the rest of the world is slowly dissipating with age. Others in the family don’t seem to have this impediment. Perhaps I’m focused on different things.
Just the opposite here. I’m finding it easier and easier to tune out distractions to the point that Ben often asks, “Did you see that? Did you hear that?” Uh…no. I was in my own zone.