You know sometimes you just… you get to a point where all the noise, the sheer volume of it all, it just… ceases to register. It’s like a kind of perceptual fading, I think the psychologists call it habituation, where a constant stimulus just drops out of your awareness. And you realize, looking at someone, some situation, that you’ve been habituated to a lot of things for a very long time. This city, it’s a symphony of constant irritation if you let it be. Every morning on the bus, it’s a fresh hell for someone, every single day. And yesterday, it was someone else’s turn. I was just sitting there, not even really looking out the window, just… being. And this person, they were on one. Really on one. “Can you believe this? SLOW AS MOLASSES. And the CROWDS. God, the CROWDS.” Over and over, a litany. And they kept bumping me, you know? Not like, aggressively, but just… their arm kept knocking against mine. Every time they gestured wildly, complaining about the general state of things, it was another nudge. And I just… sat there. Motionless. Silent. Didn't even really feel it, honestly. I mean I don't even — whatever. It wasn't about being confrontational, or even being particularly zen. It was just… nothing. The sound of their voice, the rhythm of their complaints, the soft thud of their elbow, it was all just background. Like the hum of the engine, or the squeal of the brakes. And I thought about how much energy it must take, to be that invested in every perceived slight, every inconvenience. To hold onto all that… that kinetic energy, that agitated state. And I just didn’t have it in me, not anymore. Not for that. And that's when you remember other things. Other times you stood silent. When you didn’t just let things wash over you, but you actively chose not to engage. A different kind of stillness, maybe. Not born of detachment, but of… necessity. A kind of self-preservation, I guess. When you knew if you said one word, if you made one move, the whole thing would just… detonate. And what price you pay for that silence, years later. What becomes of the things you held back, the words that never found air. They don't just disappear, do they? They become part of the quiet. Part of the habituation. So yeah, this person kept complaining, kept bumping, kept being profoundly irritated by the world. And I just sat there. Looking straight ahead. My stop came, and I got off, and the noise continued behind me. The bus pulled away, carrying all that frustrated energy down the street. And I walked home, into my quiet apartment, and made some tea. The silence in here, it’s a different kind of loud sometimes. Not habituated, not exactly. More like… a constant, low thrum. A reminder of all the things that are no longer bumping into you. Or the things you no longer let.