We lived right by the road for over twenty years and didn't realize how much all that background noise affected us - until we moved. Now we live in a very quiet place and it is heavenly peaceful all the time.

The machine age is only about one hundred and fifty years old. Before that the world was quiet. Imagine for a moment a world without engines - no cars, no airplanes, no kitchen machines and appliances, no noisy farm equipment. With the development of electric cars we may actually be heading back in that direction, as my husband noted the other day. Have you sat in an electric car? You can't even hear that the engine is running. Generating electricity from solar panels is completely silent as well. I remember the roar of the furnace in our old house when the thermostat switched it on, the geothermal system in our new place is almost noiseless.

Quietness is grounding. Alone-time is important to reboot your mind. Are we headed back to a quieter world? Will it help us to become more grounded and less frazzled? When our children were small we reminded them every once in a while that they needed to stop chattering for a bit and said "It is quiet time now." Find some quiet time every once in a while, it brings peacefulness.