The Sound and the Fury

For many years, I have been battling to try and keep media brainwashing out of my life. And, for a person who lives in a modern city, I think I do an admirable job. I don’t own a car so I don’t listen to the radio in it driving to work or running errands. I don’t own a Walkman, so when I run or walk I just hear the loud humming of the City accompanied by my labored breathing. I’m pretty good at keeping the television turned off when I’m at home. I’m pretty good, in the sense that I ONLY watch about two hours a day at the most. But that amount bothers me, and as much as I try, I can’t stop my television habit.

When we purchased the Moulin, I didn’t want to sully the tranquility by buying a television and bringing all the ills that lurk in the outside world into our little paradise. My husband said he was going to get one, but in four summers, he hasn’t. He always threatens that he’s going to buy a television; but at this point I don’t know if he means it or if he just wants to tease me. Without a television, we talk a lot more, we sit down together at the table for meals, we are more creative, we read more, and we get more work done. Without a television, my eighteen-year-old plays his guitar, draws, and to my great surprise, devours novels.

When I walk the sheep or ride the horse, I’m out in Nature and rarely bothered by noise pollution from the modern world. I believe that this “cleansing” of my mind from outside influences that have agendas to promote – political or commercial – is what brings me the peace I find here in France.

Yesterday, I made the mistake of listening to a radio program from the U.S. on the internet while I sewed my quilt squares. About half an hour after I turned the noise off, I was sitting outside on the terrace sewing, and I was overtaken by a painful headache (I don’t often get headaches) as the commercials from the radio continued playing in my mind. Their catchy sayings and their infectious music just wouldn’t leave me alone. As I write this I see that I must sound like a nut case to those of you who are daily inundated with television, radio, elevator music, store music, traffic.

But I think that I had finally reached a point where I had cleared my mind of unnecessary media noise and that when I listened to the radio yesterday, my brain just didn’t want to be faced with that onslaught of attention-deficit-inducing material.. What’s interesting to me is that I had really wanted to listen to this show and I enjoyed hearing what the guests on it had to say. Still, my brain rebelled. For a tonic, I sipped a small glass of wine and went to bed. As I lay in bed, plagued by the headache and the oppressive heat, I remembered that the radio show had featured a film critic who discussed the recent remake of The Manchurian Candidate. This new film is about a corporation planting monitors in people’s brains to control their thoughts. In the movie Denzel Washington keeps pointing to his forehead and saying, “It’s in here. It’s in here.” According to the critic, the message this film is making can be garnered not only from the plot, but from the soundtrack as well as corporate media is playing constantly in the background -- television news, talk radio, advertising, etc. This ubiquitous programming of our minds to buy that, think this, takes away any hope we have of being original thinkers as our minds are too busy processing the thoughts that others are paying to plant in them.

Well, Amen Brother, I’ve been aware of this form of “control” and have been fighting it, and then when I relapsed, you were there to remind me about what I’m trying to run away from. My own brain rebelled against the takeover as well by giving me the headache.

This morning I woke up at 5:30. I tried to get up at 5 but couldn’t do it. I want to get on horseback by 7am because after ten it will just be too hot to ride. By ten the flies will be out swarming and the horse will be too busy fighting them to give me a pleasant ride. All evening and through the night, we had lightening flashes which buoyed my hopes, and I’m sure the hopes of all the neighbors, that we would have a rain storm. But no rain arrived. Already at 6:30am it is quite hot. I can’t wait to spend a couple hours on the horse, just wandering through the woods, clearing my mind of the media debris I deposited in it yesterday.

I reached a milestone on my quilt yesterday. I pieced together enough patches to make the small quilt I had originally set out to construct. However, I’m now debating whether I should continue and make a larger quilt. My husband suggested that I make it big enough for our bed. So I’m debating whether to spend another month piecing together the squares by hand. Last night, Roger came and took his sewing machine back. He’s taking it to a friend to have him clean, oil, and put it in working condition. If the machine works, I could quickly piece together a large quilt. So I just may stop now with this current small quilt. Then when I look at it I’ll know that every stitch in it is a hand stitch of mine. I don’t know why that thought would bring me satisfaction, but it would.

Have a great day, and for your own peace of mind, try to stay away from the television and the radio.