Thanks a lot Jerry’s Home Improvement Center! I really needed that! I was calling for product information not for entertainment, but upon being placed on hold, I was forced to listen to Van Morrison singing Brown Eyed Girl. I was forced to listen to this through the telephone – an audio technology developed in the earlier half of last century – an audio technology designed for marginally intelligible human speech. No way is that technology designed for music which invariably sounds like complete & total shit. But oh no, I was forced to listen to LA LA LA LA LA…..
What you’re trying to say is that you think I’m such a weak and frightened person that if I’m forced to confront the ambient silence inside my own head, I’ll get unnerved and hang up the phone and take my business elsewhere. So rather than risk that, you thought nothing of forcing me to listen to LA LA LA LA LA….
I haven’t been doing my twice daily meditation practice for over 45 years to have you assume that I’m such a pathetic little piece of shit that my subconscious mind is full of scary thoughts and anxieties that are so debilitating that it’s somehow preferable to listen to LA LA LA LA LA….
It’s not that I don’t like music. I’m glad music exists. It’s just that I seldom choose to listen to it. Given the choice between listening to LA LA LA LA LA… or bathing in the rich, silent interior of my mind, I choose the latter.
Human beings have an astonishing capacity for talking themselves into believing absolutely ridiculous shit when doing so happens to be convenient. And yet all of us have a vast ocean of silence, clarity and peace lying deep inside of us. Like bubbles rising up from the bottom of a deep, old pond, this is the basis of sentient consciousness out of which our thoughts emerge. It is where we are all one. The degree to which a person is saturated in that ocean of silence, clarity and peace is the degree to which that person will tend to believe what is true as opposed to believing whatever the fuck happens to be convenient. It is also the degree to which that person will be happy and feel love for their fellow human beings. In honor of that vast ocean of silence, clarity and peace, I shall refrain from mimicking that annoying song again.