Background Noise - Oct 14 2026

 

Background Noise

Oct 14 2026

When the power went out

I sat in the dark,

as if waiting for someone to come

and tell me what to do.

My connection to the world

  — the digital umbilicus

that enters invisibly through the air —

had been cut;

the clear soup

of electromagnetic waves in which we swim

wherever we go

like it or not.

Which, if I didn’t take it for granted 

would seem like magic

in any other age.

The quiet was unsettling.

The noises the house makes

you only notice when they’re gone

made the sudden silence loud

  — the rumbling in its stomach

when the fridge switches on,

the wheeze of its breath

when the furnace blows.

Even the electric hum

of the bad fluorescent light

that keeps an eye on thing.

All the accustomed distractions

with which I passed the time

were out.

Alone

without the busywork I putter with,

the diversions

that keep boredom at bay. 

With nothing to drown out that voice in my head

or stop me from talking back,

and with none of the pictures and texts

that prevent my mind from wandering.

   . . . Because who knows where it might go?

Then, as I still sat

anchored to my chair

looking vacantly ahead

the power returned;

music played

video pulsed

content scrolled.

And the house came alive, lights lit up;

so whatever inner light

might have flickered to life

dimmed to a wintery dusk,

overpowered

by their 100 watt glow.

The inner light

like that fluorescent hum of background noise

I rarely notice anymore.

We live in age of constant distraction and stimulation. Like the cravings for junk food, our brains have become wired to crave the empty calories of easy input. 

But boredom is good. Sitting with yourself is good. Letting your mind wander can lead you to surprising places. This is where creativity happens. There is a very revealing study that says a lot about our need for distraction. Here’s Gemini's thumbnail description: “In a 2014 psychological study published in Science, researchers found that 67% of men and 25% of women chose to self-administer a mild electric shock rather than sit quietly alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes.”

So that’s what the poem is about: the inner light an easy metaphor for the inner life.

I spend most of my time alone. I’m connected, but loosely, and it’s quiet here. So I have lots of time to get bored, think, and get to know myself. Which is both good and bad: perhaps too much time for introspection, retrospection, and unpleasant rumination. Deep thinking is good; over-thinking and living in your head, not so much.

Admittedly, my life would change and be a lot less comfortable without the internet. But I’m not the man in the poem.  …Although maybe I am, after all. Because when the power goes out, my generator goes on. There’s a 20 second delay. And 20 seconds without electricity is hardly a test of sitting alone with yourself!

It’s just a minor tangent in the poem it wouldn’t have done to elaborate on, but you really have to wonder what the electronic soup we swim in all night and day everywhere we go is doing to us. It’s unnatural: throughout all of evolutionary history, human beings (and all life on earth) have never been exposed to such a thing. But hard to be concerned about something when you can’t see, hear, touch, or smell it!