This Week |Last Week |Beginning | 1^st Goal
Weight    216Lbs |   -3Lb   |   -15Lbs | 200Lbs
Waist     43.5"  |   -1"    |   -3.5"  |  40"
Chest     44.25" |   -.25"  |   -1.75" |  48"

As described in my last post, I had decided to have a week free of electronic media. Monday morning will mark the end of the experiment so I am still in 'radio silence' but here are my observations after six days.

-The road sounds good.
This whole idea was born as I was driving to work on Monday and decided not to turn on the radio or plug in the iPod. What I did after that, and on every trip following, was to open my windows and hear the sound of the road. The point was not to encase myself in silence but to observed the music that I, and nearly everybody else, has been missing.

This was my favorite part of the week. Today I was listening to a yellow Porsche in traffic beside me it's engine sounded tight and precise at low speeds but the rat-cage fan-driven oil pump (the main difference between a Porsche engine and most other cars) made it sound wheezy and weak as it wound up past 2000RPM.

I loved hearing the pavement change from one surface to another or passing truck. First I would hear the engine, rattle of the engine cover and the scream of the turbocharger winding up. Then the drive wheels and the exhaust with it's throaty bellow. Last the wheels of the trailer passed by in relative silence.

That reminded me of driving the bus when I was on the road: The engine, being in the back of the bus, is so far away it can barely be heard when your rolling down the road. When the window was open (known as the fart window but more commonly used for 'other' fumes) one could hear the road quite plainly and the surrounding traffic without the distraction of sounds like things going horribly wrong with the engine or transmission.

To me, the sound of the road is a soothing lullaby that began on trips to my grandparents' house when I was very young. It has that effect to this day…  Whoa! WAKE UP! You're still driving!

-There is no escaping the Election and certain new items.
I didn't go media-free to escape the election but it sure crossed my mind as a benefit. Sitting in the "Sony Grill" which is basically the Sony lot commissary, There were CNN screens everywhere I looked. Audra would also want to discuss things she had seen on TV (while I was gone) and things she'd heard from her Mom. I had also read the entire article about Paul Newman's death after seeing the link on the home page of my Yahoo email account before realizing I had 'peeked' around a forbidden corner of my rules.

I also found myself in traffic next to a open-windowed car listening to "All Things Considered" the NPR evening news program. I considered closing my window but I decided that my windows were open deliberately to experience the sound of my commute, that news show just happened to be one of those sounds.

-The silence has been good for creativity
If nothing else, the experiment presumably bore some creativity. Over the course of about an hour, I cranked out new lyrics and fitted it with a piece I'd been fooling around with on my grandmother's classical guitar for around 18 years. I'm actually quite excited about it and if my partner-in-crime, Juan, agrees when he hears it, it will probably go on the CD.
Here are the words:

© Joel T Johnson 2008
_________________________

-Reading is fundamental
If you remember the old "RIF" ads in the seventies? I learned this week that my reading muscles are the equivalent to a 90 Lb weakling. I spent much of my time this week reading. It was something I could handle: a picture book: My wife has this huge book called "The Movies" which is a history of of movies and movie making in the US. This is not to say that I just looked at pictures of silent movie stars there is a libretto, poorly written as it may be, so I do read every word. The pictures are a great help in being able to take brief breaks in the deciphering of words before I flip the page and read on.

My learning disability makes reading difficult but that's a lame excuse for not reading. It's a skill just like anything else, so what if I happen to start a little further down the hill that most other folks, it doesn't mean I can't read as well or as much as anyone else, I just have to want to work at it.

This week has helped me remember that when I manage to read something, I enjoy it quit a bit.

-It was not that hard
I was expecting this to be a bigger challenge. Sitting down with a plate of food and not sitting on the couch and clicking on the remote was hard at first. I slipped up here and there simply out of habit.

Exercising in the gym sans tunes just plain sucked. I ain't trying that again.

On my running/hiking trail it was fine. Not having to carry the iPod or have the ear buds and cable to worry about wasn't even a bit liberating. I enjoyed hearing the sounds of the city and of the canyons. My favorite part was hearing irreverent bits of other peoples' conversations as I passed them. When I run with the ear buds in, the world is closed-in—not always a bad thing. Without them things seem to open up including my mind. I'll admit, it is a little easier huffing up a hill with the Red Hot Chili Peppers bangin' away to inspire me.

Our evenings have been very pleasant with my either reading, working on the CD on my laptop or researching exercise techniques or whatever, while Audra listened to music with headphones (she, like my good buddy Kenbone, would wilt like a flower in the desert without a little music). She played "Bookworm" on her computer and researched fall fashions online.

I think I will want to indulge in more of these quiet evenings. I never noticed how loud the refrigerator can be though.

-One week is not enough
'Eight' may be enough, but seven is not. I think I would have to extend this experiment much further to really find out what lies beneath the clutter of my noisy life.

Am I going to continue living media free?

Two answers: Yes –and- Of course not.

It's not realistic to go on like this all the time. I enjoy music, movies and some TV too much to give them up entirely, but I would like to spend more meals eating at the table with just the sweet sound of conversation with my wife. I will indulge in what used to be only a Sunday night treat when I was growing up: eating dinner in front of the TV, but maybe more as an actual treat and not a lifestyle.

I will spend a bit more of my commutes listening to the music of the road and the sound of my own thoughts. I will be listening to a lot of music as well—it is my stock and trade after all and I do a lot of my work on the CD while listening to and singing along with my tracks in the car.

I think that living media free does not have to mean living without media. Perhaps it's just the ability to choose to experience some silence, however briefly, just to hear the difference.