Quiet

To make progress in life, you need reason. To live a life guided by reason, you first have to figure out what reason requires in turn.

One requirement is the ability to think, which in turn requires quiet. You cannot think effectively in loud environments.

If you currently spend a large chunk of your time in loud environments, seek quieter ones. For example, if your home is generally loud – because you have a large family of musicians, say, or you share a room with a crying baby – go on walks in quiet areas.

When picking a place to live, prefer quiet neighborhoods. Pick houses facing away from traffic, not sharing walls with neighbors, etc. Prefer the top floor so there are no footsteps above you. Pick residential neighborhoods over ones with bars and other nightlife. Download a decibel meter on your phone and measure the noise when you tour apartments. Tour them during rush hour or when neighbors are home. Prefer apartment complexes that don’t allow pets (barking!).

Get noise-reducing headphones. I use AirPods Pro and AirPods Max. I wear the Pros to sleep. (Getting enough quality sleep is another prerequisite of reason.) If you cannot reduce ambient noise, mask it with white noise. Steady, predictable noise is less distracting than irregular noise.

Some people like noise for bad reasons. They want to drown out their own thoughts or reality (or both). Some like loud music for those reasons – at nightclubs, for example, where they take drugs toward the same ends.

If you want to drown out reality and/or your own thoughts, you should consider this desire a major, urgent problem in your life. It will go poorly. Figure out how to solve it as soon as possible. Reality is not your enemy; your own mind is not your enemy. You can’t escape them anyway. Wanting the impossible is irrational, ie incompatible with reason.

Reason and rationality require you to read and, eventually, write. You cannot read effectively in loud environments. Seek quiet environments to read.

You can listen to music while reading, but the louder the music, the more distracted you’ll be. Your brain has limited processing power. Quieter is generally better. There’ll still be plenty of time for music, movies, etc. during less demanding parts of your day. The more demanding parts, the ones requiring most or all of your attention, typically won’t take up more than a few hours of your day anyway. They take too much energy to sustain for very long.

You obviously can’t always control the noise level in your surroundings. Maybe you work in construction, maybe you have a large family, etc. Maybe you can afford some remedies but not others. It’s different for different people. For example, not everyone likes complete quiet. Some find it distracting and prefer light background noise, like in a somewhat crowded cafe. Try different noise levels and choose one that maximizes your ability to think and hear your own thoughts. (To reduce distractions, listening to a recording of a cafe might be better than physically being in one.)

If you cannot avoid groups, then the smaller, the better. However, your most productive thinking is usually going to be when you’re physically alone. (Being alone is different from being lonely!) You can and should no doubt get creative and critical input from other people, but that can also be done in quiet settings: over instant messaging, forums, physically one on one, etc.

Introverts will naturally gravitate toward quieter environments, whereas extroverts will seek out groups. Different group settings have different noise levels: book clubs are quieter than nightclubs. In general, the quieter and smaller a group, the better you’ll be able to think in it.

In short, your progress in life depends on reason, which depends on your ability to think, which in turn depends in large part on quiet. Try to set aside some quiet time each day so you can think.