There is one thing in the world I desire more than anything else. Silence. Think about the last time you experienced a waking moment of silence. Not when you were quiet but there was a tapping of keyboards and ringing of phones. Not when you were fighting the peak hour crowds, the traffic, the smells. Not when you got home, flopped in front of the TV or computer. I mean a time where there was no stimulus except your own thoughts. No sights, no sounds, no smells. Just you and your brain.

It doesn't happen often, does it? It is far too easy to get distracted; there's the net, there's computers, there's TV, there's gossip, there's calling friends. Every new piece of consumer electronics is designed to distract. That's what entertainment is about - distraction. Because more and more society is about not thinking for yourself. Your thinking is done for you, on cable TV or in newspapers. If you so choose you can simply opt out completely and not have an opinion about anything. Someone else can fight the good fights. It happens more and more. It is why politics is so far removed from much of the population. A large part of the adult population couldn't give a stuff as long as there's food on the table, a steady job and something funny on the tube.

Society is driving everyone to distraction. There's too much information. There's too much noise. There's just too darn much of everything. We're all busy coping with abundance. In the meantime we never get any time. For anything. We're all too busy. We're all too distracted.

Some people are happy with this state of affairs. It's all too hard to think for yourself. It means finding facts, weighing up pros and cons and deciding where you stand. It might mean questioning beliefs, morals, dogma. It might mean admitting you were wrong, or that you don't know. It might mean change.

Silence and time. The two enemies of modern society.