There was one addiction I had to cure.
It wasn’t alcohol, drugs, sex or shopping, it wasnt biting my nails, chocolate or coffee.
It was NOISE
I had a Noise addiction.
Since the tender age of ‘Radio 5 is amazing and I can listen to football matches on it’ about 13, thats what I was addicted to.
NEWS NOISE
SPORTS NEWS NOISE
Radio 5 on, all the time.
Every match, every Saturday, all the time.
From age 13 I also did a paper -round, and after a year, the front pages were as interesting as the back ones – so I got into the noise of politics.
I started to like the NEWS.
So Radio 5 on all the time. A lot of the time – that is when I wasnt trying to concentrate on studying or passing exams. It kept me sane during the need for complete concentration overload.
And then 20 years on there was THE BBC NEWS Channel.
I needed to keep being in the needing to know what’s going on. 2-3 hours at the end of the day, in a loop, same news, then ‘what the papers say’ about the same news, and then what people on twitter say about what the papers say about what the news is about the reaction to the papers on the news and the news about the papers and it goes on.
Oh and Question time and ‘that programme with Andrew Neil late on a Thursday which I used to think was boring when growing up but then somehow I thought it was interesting and more interesting than the actual news, but was still the news in a slightly sardonic kind of way.
And talking of sardonic, ‘comedy’ from the age of 14 was also about the the kind of satire on the news, like Have I got news for you with Roy Hattersley replaced by a tub of lard kind of funny and Angus Seaton being terminated because he was the news and then Mock the Week that I thought was funny then I didn’t think was funny but it was news and stuff and noise and NOISE and I needed NOISE to drown out everything and it consumed me.
And the noise was in the headphones so that I didnt need to feel anything, just hear the noise and be concentrating on the noise, and I would listen to podcasts of people doing funny things with the news and the sport and even the movies, but I wasnt really that into movies but I liked the noise of people who talked about the movies and I got to like movies as a result but it was the noise that was as important.
NOISE
TALKING
THINKING
BEING AWARE OF EVERYTHING
also
I didnt want to watch a movie or a box set, I didnt want my heart to be evoked, amazing as I think about it that the two films I watched in the 3 months to the breakdown and separation were 12 years a slave and The Color purple. But generally, current NOISE was what I needed. Keep focussing on out there…
And
Then
I stopped
watching
the
news.
I
Stopped
the
Noise.
I didnt have my own TV – and realised in a safe place, I didnt need the noise.
I stopped the noise of news
I stopped even listening
Safety and retreat meant being able to listen to a different beat.
My own
Not what I think and being on a need to constantly think
I needed to reduce the noise to hear myself
And now
The only time I listen to the Radio is when my daughter wants to put it on in the car.
Unpredictable news noise is out.
I dont want to know.
I was addicted to Noise, News noise
Sport Noise
Creating boundaries was and is something I need to continually revisit, but to this day, and 2 years almost to the day since I moved into my flat, I am yet to hear a live news broadcast in it, I am yet to pollute the soundwaves of my home with toxic Boris or anyone else.
I control the noise.
I decide how I consume the ‘news’ if at all.
And yes I am on social media…but that doesn’t have the same visceral reaction as on a screen
I still decide. I am not leaving a gaping hole in a boundary in which the news can filter in, whether true or propaganda, it doesnt have a place.
And what have I replaced it with? Well, Music of course. Just music, life giving, artistry, creativity, the prophetic and poetic, even the mundane and the middle of the road. And sometimes just silence.
Quiet.
Noise
The distant seagulls and the birds in the trees.
Maybe the noise of news and comedy was a very good crutch that I needed, and im grateful for it….but part of what I needed to do to heal, was change the rhythm completely, and I really haven’t gone back. Do I miss the BBC? nope.
James Ballantyne 