Perhaps the most memorable song from the 1967 film The Graduate is Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.”  Who can forget the final scene when Elaine, in her white wedding dress, and Ben, in his white hoodie, plop themselves down, breathless and laughing, in the back of a city bus while dismayed passengers look on? What on earth have these kids done!  And no sooner does the camera pan back to the faces of the kids themselves than we see their own expressions devolve from exuberant laughter and excited anticipation into blank stares and vacant bewilderment. Now they too wonder what on earth they have done!

     Critics of the lyrics generally agree that the song is about the difficulty of communicating emotionally, especially in an atmosphere of constant distraction and noise. Some critics have even suggested that the lyrics were prophetic warnings of increasing social isolation as the 20th century progressed into a world of instantaneous information and ever-expanding technology. Even the plot of the film can be seen as a prescient warning, particularly to my own Boomer generation, of the pitfalls of  “dropping out” of traditional roles and rules without adequate forethought. Just look at the upheaval that subsequently ensued in the 1960s and ‘70s.

     Now in the 21st century, we can all attest to the generalized anxiety and alienation brought on by the constant chaos of misinformation and the unrelenting demands of social media. Cell phones buzz and ping and ring all day, cable television blares breaking news, and even printed headlines shout from the page. So much noise, so much distraction, so much busyness — in the aftermath of the isolation of Covid 19, we have multi-tasked ourselves into a collective case of ADD. I don’t know about you, but there are days when I, too, want to get on a bus (better yet, in my new car) and flee, just like Elaine and Ben. But where to go to get away from it all…

     As observed by MSNBC’s commentator Chris Hayes in a recent New York Times essay, “The endless diversions offered to us in every instance we are within the reach of our own phones means we never have to do the difficult work of figuring out how to live with our own minds.” (Opinion section, 1/5/2025)  And the work of our own minds is found only in silence. Busyness abates boredom, Hayes contends in his essay, but we cannot escape our own mind. And in our mind is the ultimate sound of silence, the interior sounds of thought and evaluation that help us focus our attention on the things that really matter.

     I have, of late, been cultivating the sound of silence through the avoidance of noise and chatter and all the distractions and ancillary worries and demands that come at me every day. I have decided that I cannot afford them, or most of the people who deliver them. My patience and my mental health simply won’t allow it. You might say that I have stepped off the treadmill of talk and tuned in to keeping my own counsel. Call me anti-social or reclusive or even downright misanthropic, but in the end, each one of us has to navigate that private existential space in our heads between hope and despair.

     Different people have different ways of trying to navigate that space and, indeed, there is a whole industry of self-help books, diet and exercise routines, and psychological practices offering assistance. Whether it’s prayer or journaling or mindfulness, or even The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, all these approaches attempt to help us develop the discipline to resist the outward distractions of the world and cultivate the composure of a centered self.  But, to quote Hayes again, “We cannot escape our own mind; it follows us wherever we go. We can’t outrun the treadmill. Our only hope of peace is to force ourselves to step off whenever we can.”

     In other words, regardless of whatever situational problems we might have, our real problem is always an existential one, and to cope with that problem, we have to be still. In these difficult times of constant chaos and crisis around the world, we have to listen for the sound of silence in ourselves. And once again I return to the final lines of my most favorite poem, “Ash Wednesday,” by my most favorite poet, T.S. Eliot: “Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.”

     Amen.