Quiet, please.

When I was young, I never wanted a Chatty Cathy doll. The idea of a doll yak, yak, yakking never appealed to me. I hated vociferous humans, so why would I want a toy with that attribute?

So many people think that their lives must be filled with noise - TV, iPod, phone, even the click, click of a qwerty keyboard. And there are those who can't even sleep without "white" noise.

My spouse has told me on more than one occasion that one of the things he loves about me is that we can ride in the car or sit in the same room and not feel the need to fill any silent moments with frivolous babble.

I suppose this is one reason I can't seem to embrace Twitter. It just seems very noisy to me - a bit like being in a large room packed with party-goers who are all talking at the same time about mostly nothing important. I think it would be an interesting experiment to see how many Twitterers could last 24 hours alone, without any electronic or human interaction. Perhaps they would discover more about themselves than any social network could for them.

Yesterday I spent the entire day scraping off a wallpaper border and painting a bedroom. There was no radio or TV on, no music from an iPod or stereo. There was, however, a stream of consciousness audible to no one but me, accompanied by the muffled sounds of leaves stirring in the wind, distant barks of dogs, and occasional chirps of birds. But in that bit of solace and stillness, I solved problems, cursed, reminisced, grieved, laughed, and made plans for the future.

Though at times others may assist, most life solutions will come from introspection. A life journey without quiet time becomes frantic, frenetic, and overwhelming. Peace insides reflects peace outside. Find some quiet time and find yourself.