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Here you’ll find comfort, perspective, and maybe even a laugh or two as we learn to live a little more peacefully with that damn noise.
Noise vs. Silence | The Myth We All Buy Into
By Marie
We all grow up believing silence is the holy grail of peace. Meditation apps preach it. Spas sell it. Countryside living is practically a cult built around it. Everyone seems to be chasing that perfectly quiet moment where life supposedly becomes… enlightened.
But here’s the question I’ve been asking myself:
Is silence really peace? Or have we all just been conditioned to believe it is?
Because if that were true, people with tinnitus would be spiritually doomed. And we’re not. (Often rather irritated, yes. But doomed? Nah.)
When Silence Isn’t an Option
Once tinnitus enters your life, your relationship with silence is over. It breaks up with you. Packs its bags. Leaves the building. And you’re left behind to pay the rent, do the housework, and deal with Old Farty Pants Moany McMoany-Face John next door complaining about how your cat shits in his begonias. Let that sink in.
Having said that, I’ve realised I need to address my life choices. Anyway, moving on.
You don’t choose tinnitus. It chooses you. And at first, you miss silence like you miss the summer holidays as a child — drinking from the garden hose, cycling until dark, dreaming of becoming the first human to turn into a sloth. Come on, surely I wasn’t the only one…?
You think peace = quiet.
You think calm = empty soundscape.
But that’s the myth. And tinnitus, the cheeky little bastard, is the one that exposes it.
Peace isn’t a sound. It’s a skill.
When the ringing doesn’t shut up, I have two choices:
• Wait for silence (good luck).
or
• Learn how to feel peaceful even when everything isn’t quiet.
It forced me to realise something pivotal:
⇒ Peace and silence are not the same thing.
⇒ Silence is an environment.
⇒ Peace is a state of mind.
⇒ Silence is external.
⇒ Peace is internal.
⇒ Silence can be taken from you.
⇒ Peace can’t. Ha! Up yours, tinnitus.
Once I finally understood that, tinnitus lost the best part of its power.
The World Is Noisy Anyway
Even people without tinnitus never really get silence:
- Electrical items hum.
- Traffic rumbles.
- Walls creak.
- Cats fart.
- Neighbours argue about who forgot to buy milk… again.
Silence is never as silent as we pretend it is. But peace? Now that’s accessible anywhere. I’ve felt peace in a busy train station. In a loud café. In my annoyingly noisy skull.
It’s not about removing noise. It’s about not letting noise remove you.
Tinnitus Rewired My Peace
Before tinnitus, I thought peace was something I had to chase. A place I had to arrive at. A perfect moment I needed to protect from disruption.
After tinnitus, I realised peace was something I could build. Something that didn’t depend on the world behaving itself. Tinnitus taught me to let noise exist without giving it power over my feelings. It taught me to breathe even when my head sounded like a broken radio. It taught me that calm is a practice, not a location. And if we’re being honest, that’s a far more reliable kind of peace.
What If Silence Isn’t the Goal?
Maybe silence was never enlightened at all. Maybe being human isn’t about escaping noise. Maybe the real enlightenment is this:
⇒ Being able to sit with the noise and still feel okay.
That’s where I’m at 90% of the time. The other 10%? Well… tinnitus occasionally finds a way to ruin my day. But make no mistake: I’m the winner in this battle for internal peace.
⇒ Stillness in the storm.
⇒ Calm in the chaos.
⇒ A quiet mind in a noisy world.
Tinnitus dragged me into that lesson kicking and screaming. I’m glad it did.
Closing Thoughts
Silence is nice. Sure. But peace? Peace is better.
And peace isn’t something you find.
It’s something you practice, build, nurture, and learn.
So if you’ve lost silence, you haven’t lost anything essential.
You might just be learning a deeper kind of quiet, the one that lives inside you.
Take care
Marie
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