One thing that I noticed myself doing frequently in 2023 (as well as previous years, but it really struck me this last year) was over-relying on background noise. Most of us are guilty of it. Every time I had to do some menial task - fold laundry, pick up the bedroom, get ready for bed - I wouldn’t feel capable of completing the work unless I had put on my wireless headphones, clicked play on a show that I had seen five odd times before, and let it run in the background. But if I have one goal in 2024, it’s to cut that behavior out of my life entirely. I’m no stranger to the tweets that say something along the lines of ‘I’m going to consume 3 types of media at once to prevent the chance of a thought occurring’. Hell, it seems today many of us can’t even get through the task of consuming media without, well… consuming other media. It’s like a three-layer cake of mind-numbing dopamine receptor heaven. Technological innovation has blessed us with the ability to completely drown out all of our existential, anxious, emotional thoughts pretty constantly. Not only is this a severe blow to our quality of life for myriad reasons, it discourages mindful consumption - that is, actually consuming media we care about because we want to feel its emotional impact, learn its lessons, etc. There is no upside to this background noise except for the instant gratification provided by its mind-numbing white noise. I’m tired of it. And, to be cliché, I want to be the change I wish to see in the world.
Over the last few years, I am sure I speak for many of us when I say it has been difficult to find mental peace and clarity. Not only am I a twenty-year old artist in a late-stage capitalist society, I am also, like the rest of us, in a completely and utterly unprecedented state of global human existence. With this in mind, it is easy for me to recall the more recent periods of my life where I have felt actual peace, perhaps even contentment. All of those periods have relied upon stillness, awareness, and presence. In the summer of 2023, I was meditating every morning and night for about ten minutes each. This helped me make the transition into a more present state of living, where I was able to tackle the everyday without feeling as though my thoughts were a constant unwanted presence. When you start to slow down in this way, so much of the world naturally becomes beautiful. You begin to want to cook yourself meals and eat them in silence, without distractions. You begin to want to take long walks without music or a cell phone. You begin to want to savor what you hadn’t savored before. When you are no longer terrified of your mind at rest, when you make space every day to watch your thoughts, your mind responds to that sensation. Your mind begins to slow down, too. Your mind will naturally gravitate towards the joy of stillness. And if you have an anxious mind like mine, that will feel like a miracle.
Background noise - that is, mindless consumption for no reason other than to avoid hearing yourself think - is like the antithesis of meditation. It completely pulls your awareness from the everyday sensations. It makes days go by in a blip of forgettable laugh tracks and checked-off to-do lists. Not only is attempting to numb your own anxious thoughts an incredibly shitty band-aid for a larger problem, but you are also, in doing so, blunting the beauty of life. Unfortunately, what some of the wisest people in the world have been saying for centuries is true - you can’t have joy without suffering. You have to rip off that band-aid and face your mind if you ever want to find true peace. Because true peace is not another re-run of New Girl or another hour on TikTok (I’m not a fan of either, but that’s neither here nor there). The more we attempt to outrun our thoughts with an excess of consumption, the more painful life becomes when we are forced to face the silence. There will always come a moment, even if it is just that hour in the dark that you spend tossing and turning before sleep, where you will have to hear the sound of your own thoughts. I know because I’ve experienced it. When your mind is used to being consistently silenced, and you suddenly give it space to breathe, your anxious thoughts will rush forth like water through broken floodgates. To consume mindfully is to locate an alternative way of living that is not a constant stopping up of this flood.
Consider, too, the situations that arise during the day where background noise is inappropriate or inconvenient - taking classes, being in the company of friends, walking on a busy street, etc. If our brain is hooked on the drug of overconsumption, we will no longer be able to enjoy the moments in life where we are untethered to the white noise of a TV show or a social media feed. Our brain will simply be too hungry for the next distraction to focus on the joy right in front of us. Be it alone or in company, we will no longer be able to focus on the things that enrich us because our brain is waiting expectantly for another dose of meaningless media. Constant background noise renders us incapable of processing the beauty of both everyday life as well as its more nourishing core memories. And, psychological effects aside, I simply don’t want to be that person who is picking up their phone or listening to a video essay in every silent moment. I want to preserve space for myself to people watch, make new connections, admire a new view or even simply enjoy my own company. I want to engage with life slowly and mindfully, not just so that I can rewire my anxious brain, but because I genuinely want to be more aware of what life is constantly offering me.
As with most pieces I write that pertain to social media, my thoughts are returning now to Tricia Hersey and her manifesto Rest is Resistance. To anyone attempting to live more slowly in 2024, the book as a whole is undoubtedly worth the read. I am also being reminded of how Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò talks about the same subject in his book Elite Capture. Social media, as we tend to forget, is a product. The goal of social media, and the goal of those who create and market it, is to maintain a happy customer base. As with dating apps, our social media overlords don’t want you to find joy or true love or true meaning in their product. They want you to keep consuming. Your addiction is their market. In Táíwò’s interpretation, this is just one example of how our modern attention economy is algorithmically designed to maintain an oppressive status quo. The more we consume, the more complacent, isolated, and addicted we become. Studies have shown that there is an inverse correlation between one’s level of daily media consumption and one’s level of daily awareness. And that’s not even to get into the fact that it is impossible to use the internet without being violently advertised to around every corner. The internet is just one sinister tool of capitalism, and the more we let ourselves rely on it to feel sane, the more we feed into its molding of our very existence.
As Tricia Hersey writes, one essential component of a slow, gentle, existence is the decrease (if not outright elimination) of social media usage in one’s life. True, deep rest, the kind of rest that nourishes the soul, cannot be achieved if we are constantly in the frazzled, antsy state produced by constant media consumption. To detach from hyperconsumption of media, be it Netflix or Youtube or TikTok, is actually to detach from systems of power that leech off of our overanxious states of being. It is to cultivate a peaceful, gentle existence free from mind-numbing entertainment, one in which we can claim agency over our state of being in a messy, difficult world. Taking a break from consumption and engaging with the real world with complete awareness is just one way in which we can truly begin to find rest. It is a way in which we can cultivate our own space unencumbered by the decisions and desires and opinions of others. It grants us the space to develop and understand ourselves organically.
I also want to consume mindfully in 2024 simply because I want to consume more good art. I believe that a part of this rising reliance on background noise comes from the fact that so much mainstream media today is simply mediocre. It is so easy to turn on a classic sitcom and vaguely tune out because we would most likely be vaguely tuning out even if it was right in front of our faces. Much of the ‘background noise’ fodder is already designed to be mind-numbing. It’s designed to appeal to as many people as possible, to provide comfort and ease rather than a confrontation of philosophical or existential truths. That’s certainly not to say that everything we consume must be mind-boggling, avant-garde works of art. It’s simply worth considering why we consume the media that we do, particularly when we begin to consume that media at all times as a means of drowning our own inner voice. In 2024, I want to give all the media that I consume my full attention, and I want all of it to truly mean something to me. I also happen to believe that the latter will occur as a natural consequence of the former. Without the crutch of background noise, I will be forced to confront the truth of what I am engaging with when I do engage with it.
Breaking the cycle of background noise is a difficult one. As a habit, it is deeply self-perpetuating. More background noise leads to more anxious thoughts leads to more attempts to drown out the thoughts (and if they’re not being drowned out with mind-numbing background noise, god only knows what other coping mechanism might be turned to). It’s a painful habit to break precisely because it is such an easy and comforting one to develop. When we detach from the habit of mindless, constant consumption, we will be forced to confront the big bad world of our unadulterated thoughts for a while as we get used to a new state of being. And there is no doubt that this will be painful at first. That’s not to mention, of course, that social media is designed to be addictive and mind-numbing in the first place, and for something that powerful, it is dangerously accessible. So, while we can certainly claim agency over our everyday lives, the blame for this issue does not rest solely on the individual. Hyperconsumption is not some lone moral failing. It is a symptom of the way in which our modern technological era is structured, and to resist against this cultural tidal wave is heavy work.
I do believe, though, that the work is worth it. There is so much beauty to be located in everyday life that is lost on us when we bury ourselves in technological distractions. Something as simple as folding laundry or doing a skincare routine can be a sensory delight, so long as we are open to receiving it. The entirety of our life can be enhanced by the decision to savor each moment. Even boredom is a necessary experience that we lose when we are constantly burying ourselves in consumption. Boredom generates creativity, creates space for stillness, and acclimates us to discomfort. If we turn off the background noise, giving our thoughts space to exist throughout each day, we may certainly still exist with pain. Suffering will always be an inevitable part of life, and cutting out poor coping mechanisms will never be a cure-all. The goal is rather to co-exist with these emotions, rather than attempting to numb them entirely. This way, when we do feel pain, grief, or anxiety, it no longer comes through in short, violent bursts, but rather in a manner that is much more easy to deal with. The more acclimated we are to the entirety of our emotional world, the easier it becomes to face the darker sides of it. When I was meditating every day, consuming mindfully, and taking life slowly, I was not free of my many emotional burdens. And yet, I was more at peace than I recall being in a very long time, not because I had successfully drowned out my negative thoughts, but because I was unafraid of them. In this sense, I felt whole, and at peace with the entirety of who I was. In 2024, I want not only to return to that space, but to nourish it even further.
I absolutely loved this. I actually felt inspired by your piece and posted something on my substack where I referenced this! thank you for sharing :)
This is such a thoughtful, thought-provoking essay. What are your thoughts on music? I often find that listening to music heightens my awareness of the moment and of the beautiful mundane. Also, you mention video essays being a source of distraction—do you think they are always a distraction or can there be a healthy balance of learning as you complete your chores/tasks/to-do list? I find myself looking forward to the moments when I can listen to a well-crafted video essay on a subject I'm curious about, and oftentimes I'd listen to it anyways, but because the days are constantly too short I am forced to multi-task.