Chasing quiet

Or why I never listen to anything when I drive, run, bike, ruck, etc.

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I barreled straight north through the center of Nebraska. I looked to my left across the famed sandhills, and the rolling undulations gave me the sense I was driving across a giant green golf ball.

Far in the distance, the horizon glowed pink as the sun set behind it. Above it, angry storm clouds shot lightning bolts at the ground, one after the other, like God’s finger taps on a piano.

I rolled down the window to smell, feel, hear that storm. The air rushed in and ripped through my car and assaulted my ears.

That was the first sound I had heard in hours.

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I call it the six-hour rule. If I can drive somewhere in six hours, I’ll do that instead of flying. And if a place is hard to get to – if it’ll take a couple flights or a couple hours of driving after a flight (or both) – I’m more than happy to modify it to the eight- or 10-hour rule.

By invoking the six-hour rule, I save money, I save hassle, I save stress, and all of that is good. But the real reason I drive long distances when I don’t have to is not what I save but what I get: quiet. Joyous, untouched, quiet.

I love long solo road trips—especially rural ones—and I love them even more in absolute silence. No music, no podcasts, no nothing. Oh, sometimes I make calls, I guess, but I prefer to leave my phone off.

And it’s not just driving. On planes, if I’m not reading or writing, I just sit there. I run in silence, I bike in silence, I ruck in silence. I do one of those three things almost every day on the Greenway near my house, and almost every day I say hello to someone who doesn’t respond because they have something in their ear and they can’t hear me.

I don’t think that’s rude, exactly; it’s too common for that. I just think they’re missing out. The birds, the wind, the creek rushing over rocks—I’d rather hear any of those than just about anything.

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I’m reading a biography of John Adams. Our second president traveled frequently between Boston and Europe, Boston and Philadelphia, and Boston and Washington, DC. I find myself jealous of all that time with nothing to do.

It’s not that I don’t like music or podcasts. It’s more that I dump data, much of it useless, into my brain all day long when I’m at my computer, so I give it a break when I’m not.

In the car, I find other ways to keep myself occupied … ha, ha no I don’t, the entire reason I drive in silence is so I don’t keep my brain occupied.

Fine, I confess, when I get really bored, I make up games. My favorite is, on a long straightaway, I let go of the steering wheel and count the seconds until I have to grab it to keep the car in my lane.

That’s like a metaphor for the freelance life—you build and build until the business runs itself. Then an unseen change causes you to slowly drift, and you have to correct. The only difference is in the freelance life, just as you grab the wheel to straighten it out, you get hit by a meteor.

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A few years ago, I worked for a startup podcast company. On a group zoom call, the tech guy went through a checklist of gear we’d all need. “Everyone will have their own air pods or headphones, so we don’t need to order those,” the tech guy said.

I raised my hand like the nerd who has never seen Star Wars. “Um, I don’t have either one of those,” I said.

Everyone seemed flabbergasted. What do you on a plane? What do you listen to when you run?

They were well-meaning, genuinely curious questions. But I found it interesting I had to defend myself for sitting in silence as if I was wasting that time and not reclaiming it.

What if … hear me out here … trying to optimize everything, all the time, is, in fact, an unsustainable way to live? What if … I know, I’m getting loony … I wasn’t made to be on 24/7/365? What if – again, crazy talk central here – I was content to just sit and think for an hour or two or six?

I don’t even have to think.

I can just drive and space out.

I love it when I pass exit 176, blink, and I’m at 225 and I have no memory of anything in between.

Though I love that less when I was supposed to exit at 210.