SHHH…AND YOU MIGHT LIVE LONGER
It’s endured for more than 200 years, but Benjamin Franklin’s adage “Nothing is certain except death and taxes” must now be amended. Today, the certainty includes brain-mugging loud music, and adverts for anti-aging supplements,
While taxes are an indisputable necessity, neither of the two additions to Franklin’s truism are in any way essential.
In fact, according to the World Health Organisation: “Loud sounds are a major environmental source of health problems. In some places, it ranks second only to air pollution.”
The efficacy of supplements falls anywhere from nil through marginal to at best, less than what the adverts claim.
Confirmation of both those assertions rests with María Branyas Morera, who died this week, aged 117 years and 168 days, still lucid and with only minor health problems.
The eighth oldest living human in history credited her longevity to: luck, good genetics, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity, and staying away from toxic people.
No mention was made of noise or supplements,
I wonder what she’d have made of the latest one scattered throughout online versions of the newspapers I read.
It is, the ornate type face proclaims “…the world’s first, and only science-backed, patented, award-winning C15:0 supplement that supports your long-term health & wellness.”
In addition to several well-spaced pages of percentages of multiple benefits, the newest longevity wonder product allegedly “…protects your cells from aging-related oxidative damage.”
I guess the late super-centenarian lady who liked coffee and yoghurt didn’t know she was in effect rusting from the inside out.
ASSAULT FROM THE OUTSIDE IN
Hopefully in her latter years she wa spared the battering of music – or someone else’s idea of it – blared without respite in almost any open space where people gather, including retail stores and supermarkets, whether customers like it or not.
It has driven me to forget to buy groceries even when they’re on a written list.
When I complained to the manager of an electronics store about the volume and choice of the in-house music, he said: “My staff like it.”
He seemed non-plussed when I replied: “I hope for your sake your staff spend a lot of money here, because I fully intended to, but I can’t make rational shopping decisions in this din,” and walked out.
No doubt that doesn’t make me unique.
Type “silence” in a search bar and scores of quotes lauding the benefits of peace and quiet will pop up.
None define it as detrimental.
Maybe that’s at the root of some, if not many, of our societal ills.
There are too many people who would rather fill their heads with noise than actual and perhaps stimulating thoughts, or have so little to think about they have to make up for the deficit with excessive decibels.
Listening to loud music is essentially self-medicating. Not something one ought to be doing in public. That includes driving around blaring your (but not necessarily everyone’s) favourite music, with a bass line so loud it makes the vehicle and others around it vibrate, for instance.
Equally annoying are jet ski riders who, for completely inexplicable (to me anyway) reasons, have music on their “personal watercraft”.
Please note: it’s “personal” only in the sense that you’re driving it and chose the music. Sound carries across water so far and so well that anyone within half a kilometer and more might as well be on it with you.
Never having owned or even ridden one, I can neither attest to nor fairly denigrate the health and psychological benefits or otherwise of the ubiquitous toys, with or without music.
What I do know, is choosing noise over quietude will never provide rare privileges like a moment of near transcendent tranquility and sense of wonder I was recently afforded.
Just before sunset, I was doing a leisurely if awkward breast stroke along the shoreline in front of our cottage.
There was no one else in sight, or sound.
Without warning or a splash, a loon popped up less than five meters in front of me.
I stopped swimming.
I could tell by the size it was a male, and they look a lot bigger at eye level than they do from a kayak.
The loon (not the one on the photo, I can’t swim with a camera) turned his head and looked at me. “Hello,” I said quietly. “You’re rather beautiful.”
he loon looked around, stared at me, then ducked his head underwater in search of fish.
After several seconds, he lifted it, and looked at me again, He was, as only a bird that can dive to 70 meters and stay submerged for up to three minutes would be, totally unperturbed by a mere human treading water.
Then he tipped forward and disappeared as suddenly and silently as he had popped up.
I’ll take that brief encounter as life enrichment over loud music and supplements any time…no matter what age I manage to reach.
Comments are welcomed. Click CONTACT on the site header.
To receive e‑mail alerts to new posts, Click SIGN-UP on the header.
13 thoughts on “SHHH…AND YOU MIGHT LIVE LONGER”
Loved your eye to eye moment in the lake with a duck that accessed you as ‘definitely no threat’ ha,ha!
Richard — a loon is not a duck…it’s our iconic waterfowl.…it’s on our one dollar clin, which we call a “loonie”.
At last, the annual loon story, no mention of politics or war, hurrah!
So pleased you’re pleased
Don’t be fooled. This was a very clever political allegory.
Pizzy, colonizing another species territory is watched carefully by the indigenous species which eventually decides the interloper is harmless.
Big mistake. In spite of millions of years of evolution the noble bird (derisively labelled by the colonizers by a word that denotes a crazy), assumes that the intruder is not equipped to threaten its homeland.
It is an old but sad story.
Sorry Pizz. Couldn’t help myself. Old English teacher wrecks another great story by over analysis.
Would have been an A+ reply, but Old English teacher drops a grade for misspelling author’s name.
You had better watch your own typos Mr Pizzey! Just an observation.
Good point. Point them out and I’ll correct them.
What a wonderful story, this loon is so refreshing and puts me in a good mood!
I’m not sure what happened…. a beautiful quiet moment with a loon on a lake… let’s return to that, please.
The reason I read Pizzey’s Perch goes back to 1989 at Tiananmen Square. I had watched & enjoyed his reporting for sometime, but this is where I realized what a great corespondent he is. His words made my heart bleed for the students. Others did the reporting in their own uniquely melodramatic ways, but there was Allen Pizzey, standing amidst the chaos, calmly allowing just his well chosen words to tell the story of why such a terror mattered to the world.
He may, at times, seem like the old fart on the street when you were a child that hated kids playing & would try to confiscate the ball if it went close to his property line — but even then, I find myself having to agree with him most of the time. He can misspell and make punctuation mistakes all he wants — that’s more important to him. What I am reading for is his insights — how he views the situations he is describing.
It can sometimes be educational when the other correspondents go back & forth in the comments about a topic. That’s when I appreciate the comments most.
If you’ve ever been on Northern US and Canadian Lakes and experienced loons looking you in the eye and their calls lulling you to sleep at night, you understand. If not, my heart breaks for you!
Thanks Allen!
I appreciate you being a “perch” reader and thank you for the compliments.…but I did not report from Tianamen Squar,e which is one of the few regrets in my career, And I am so pleased you feel about loons the way I do.
P.S. Any time you or anyone else spots a tyro or grammatical error in a post, I appreciate it being pointed out so I can fix it.
H‑m-m‑m, I could have sworn it was Tiananmen. Well, I do remember a lot of chaos going on, with you remaining quite calm and your description bringing tears to the corners of my eyes, for the horror occurring at the time. But then you’ve done a lot of reports like that! You’ve seen a lot of ugly, but also some beauty — some even in the midst of the ugliness, and I appreciate your take on all of it.
I would not want to correct your copy — I’m reading for enjoyment, usually during my lunch break on Fridays. Besides, I think that a lot of them have to do with auto-IN-correct. It happens all the time.
I covered a lot of chaos, so it as an esay mistake to make.Again, thank you for the kind words and please do point out t typos.