Noise

By

Obododimma Oha

How compatible are noise-making and the ability to think? Noise in your head and noise in the environment. Noise in your life and noise in the lives of others. How compatible is noise with observation and careful execution? Are we here for noise?

I know that some would ask me what “noise” is, so that we would start arguing concerning the definition. Assuming that person does not know again and has been drowned in the deluge and can no longer tell white from black, let us help such people bracing up for argument by defining noise simply as sound considered unacceptable in a particular setting. I posted an update about noise-making sometime ago and one commenter objected, arguing that we had been empowered “to make a joyful noise unto the Lord” by the Bible. So, if I was censoring noise, I should be ready to fight it out with the Holy Bible? And who says I could win? How could I win against the whole Holy Bible, the word of God itself? I am not courageous enough! I am simply telling those who have to “make a joyful noise” to do so at the appropriate place and time, and to allow those of of us who think that noise cannot be made everywhere and every time to have our way.

But this is principally about noise and thinking. Maybe I am focusing on this because as a teacher, I think that I have been called to think and do not want anything that would prevent me from doing so. So, allow me to think. Go to where you have to “make a joyful noise” and begin to do so, even compete with other noises. But allow me to think and to think about life.

I know that my aversion to “joyful noises” made away from their context is also principally because I am of an earlier generation and should have been dead before now. In typical New School parlance, I am of the “Old School” which takes life seriously. I do not wear tattered jeans and “swagger” down the street in a “bad” way, to nowhere in particular, with wires running from ear to ear to make sure that in noise I live and move and have my being. It is my Old School orientation that seems to be my “problem”!

But how can somebody be a captive of noise and be able to think about life? How could somebody drowned in noise even notice  the anopheles  mosquito that is sucking his or her blood? How could somebody distracted by noise care that a government is doing anything it likes with resources? How could anybody given to noise care about exceeding the time limit while observing an experiment in a laboratory? How could somebody making “a joyful noise” know when a particular dose of a drug has been exceeded or whether the right injection is being administered to a patient? Think of how full concentration matters in some activities and in some places and see how noise could undermine what one needs.

In our Igbo folklore, noise is of the market-place. Noise also belongs to village square. But be careful: some people may be observing and listening.Do not bring noise when offering sacrifices to the spirits of the ancestors. Noise is of this noisy life-world. When shooting ground cannons at lavish funerals and spirits of the dead are visiting, just to observe events, they may be surprised at loud noises and may run back and remain dead! You see, your ways are not my ways! Your noises are not for me.

I think that mortals should think. And I think that this requires good observation first of all and saying goodbye to all distractions. One cannot hope to accomplish a particular task and then welcome what could lead to it not being accomplished. One cannot pour salt on a basin to sell in the open in the heart of the market and then phone the rain-maker, asking this author of water disaster to make sure it rains elephants and hipopotami that day! I think that we should think. That is why we are here.

How can we change this world unless we think? And how can we think unless we are ready to think? How can we think of better turns by not thinking about them?

We can only make more noise, while others who want to laugh at us encourage us by producing and giving us new means of making noise. That gets us fully into noise-making. Why should we even think about being asked to make noise in season and out of season? The world needs more comedians. Some have to give their lives to noise; others to thinking. Finally, we will count our blessings and some will get bitter, and the latter is always free to blame the former for disadvantage.

What is the fragment of idea remaining in that head when it is oppressed by noise? That statue that has an opening at both ends is very appropriate to this discourse. Nothing remains in the head; it enters through this ear and escapes though that ear. Nothing remains in the noisy head. Thanks to the artist and the concept-maker. Nothing remains in the noisy head with openings at both ends. The ideas do not stay in the head. They find escape route through the other end, says Old School.

Noise will not save us. Noise of our abilities. Noise about a glorious past. Noise about a miraculous future. Noise about being a giant. Noise about Big Daddy alias “Big for Nothing.” Noise about being the greatest in noise-making. Noise about being "knowers" while others are "non-knowers." Noise about noise. But noise will not save us. Noise will not repair the bad roads. Noise will not pay workers’ wages. Noise will not govern in a commendable way. Also, noise will not perform ground-breaking experiments in laboratories. Noise will not launch space shuttles and go into deep space. But noise would only snore and sleep soundly while the world is rotating on its axis and revolving round the sun. It has to sleep soundly to show that it is undesirable.

Sleep on, noise. I am on that space shuttle, leaving this world for you. Stay in this world to make “a joyful noise.”