Why I Stopped Writing And Started Listening

I’m sure some of you have noticed I haven’t been writing as much as I used to. I get lots of emails asking why this is. Many of these emails are ultra-friendly emails, beginning with the words, “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!!!?”

To answer this, I need to start by telling you about our trip to Spain.

Not long ago, we walked the Camino de Santiago for a second time. For a second time we were on foot in Spain, living out of our backpacks, communicating fluently in Spanish hand gestures.

For a second time, we read Spanish signage, watched Spanish TV, ate Spanish foods, and enjoyed many authentic Spanish foodborne illnesses which transform the lower digestive region into nuclear field testing sites.

While we were there, something kinda cool happened to me. I heard a voice. I don’t know how to describe the voice. I don’t even know whose voice it was. But it was definitely a voice. It was, however, a quiet one.

I suppose I could only hear the voice because the noise of daily life died down. And I became acutely aware of the present moment. I had never really connected with the present moment before. I’d always been living in the next few moments. Or worse. I was reliving the decades of past moments. But in the silence of the Camino, I was here. I was now. And I heard the voice.

We live in a loud world.

Smart TVs, mobile phones, tablets, and other media devices blare frightening news, twenty-four-seven. The news isn’t even news anymore. It’s cleverly worded headline phrased with trigger words and slanted spin phrasing. Stories are announced by talking heads, capable of discussing a single media event for upwards of six or seven hours without once pausing to reapply hairspray.

And the News People don’t just make a lot of noise, they directly tell you what your opinions should be about “the issues.” They tell you, subconsciously, how you should feel. They urge you to wallow in negative emotions about nearly everything. With each broadcast, they TEACH you to feel, think, and react negatively.

Often, news channels even format their shows as round-table discussions where several negative people discuss multiple negative topics wearing negative expressions on their made-up faces, and they argue for 60 minutes—except for the 2,348,197 pharmaceutical ad interruptions.

The pharma ads are the worst. They offer fear-based advertisements. They advertise meds for disorders like acid reflux, diabetes, weight loss, AIDS, depression, eczema, Crohn’s disease, ALS, GERD, COPD, HIV, PCOS, CHF, CKD, IBD, PID, RA, SLE, TB, and IBS. Then, an announcer doing his best Morgan Freeman impersonation reads a disclaimer warning that this medication might cause headaches, diarrhea, dizziness, mood swings, loss of personality, loss of the marital impulse, liver infections, blood infections, paralysis, seizures, uncontrollable muscle spasms—which might be permanent—and lastly, thoughts of suicide.

This confuses me. First, the ads scare you into TAKING the meds. Then they scare you spitless for even CONSIDERING such medications. Sometimes I watch these commercials and wonder what exactly it is that pharmaceutical companies are actually asking me to DO. Do they want me to use their products or soil my undergarments whenever they use the word “suicide”?

In addition to the noisy ads and negativity, you also have the rise of the smartphone, which is taking over our lives.

We used to read books. We used to write letters and send postcards. We used to rifle through newspaper pages on Sunday mornings. Neighborhood kids used to ride bikes, build forts, and climb trees. We used to play outside until dark, then race inside to catch “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.” Today nearly 12 percent of American children ride bikes regularly. Fifty years ago it was 80 percent.

The quiet way of living is disappearing from modernity. But I re-found the quietude in Spain.

I had missed it. I missed a life where media outlets, advertisers, mega-corporations, and pharmaceutical firms weren’t yelling at me. The pace was slower, too. The Spanish TVs played old John Wayne movies. The radio stations played old Elvis hits. Farmers still used walking sticks and wore actual straw hats. People drove cars with actual chrome on the fenders. Sometimes it felt like you were stuck in 1953, minus the threat of nuclear war.

And, as I say, it was quiet. So quiet.

The countryside was so silent you could hear your own heartbeat. You could hear yourself think. You could hear that little voice inside you. The voice that isn’t you speaking, but sort of sounds like you because it talks through your brain.

The same voice that reminds you to slow down. To breathe. To chill out and not panic. The voice that tells you to stop and look around you, right now, because life is flying past, and you’re missing it.

The same voice that tells you, gently, that you ought to value people instead of your job. Not new friends you wish you had. Not old relationships that went bye-bye a long time ago. The voice is talking about the people who are in your life right this moment. What if you treated them—each one of them—as if THEY were your job?

“What if,” the voice suggests, “all that energy you spent on your writing, working, and producing Internet ‘content,’ you instead spent on people?”

After all, people are what this life is about. It’s always been about people. Their love is the only possession you can carry with you when you leave this Earth.

When the voice says stuff like this to you, it makes you weep. Namely, because you realize that you haven’t been doing what the voice suggests, for many years now. You’ve been winging it, out there on your own.

But when the voice speaks, it gives you a little courage. It gives you a shot of confidence to step back from the noise, and just be.

Since I have slowed my writing career down, I have been investing my daily energy into people. People who matter to me. Instead of producing another 300-page book, I have traveled more, visiting old friends. I have eaten more good food with loved ones. I have shared more cold beers with pals. I have watched more reruns of Lawrence Welk.

I have cried more happy tears with people I care about. I have stayed up laughing until 1 a.m. with those who love me and found myself wondering why the hell I haven’t been spending more time with them.

In short, I think I’m finally getting it. I think I’m finally learning what my life is truly supposed to be about. I think I’m finally seeing a less selfish me emerge. I’m only sorry it took me so long to get over myself. How can I ever forgive myself for such an error?

“Aw, don’t beat yourself up,” comes a quiet reply. “I already forgave you a long, LONG time ago.”

At least that’s what the voice said to me.