"For the most sensitive among us the noise can be too much."  Jim Carrey

These words struck me the first time that I read them after the suicide of Phillip Seymour Hoffman.  They immediately popped into my head when I heard about Robin Williams.

They resonate with me.

Big. Time.

Don't get me wrong.  I am NOT going to take my life and I have NOT ever been to the place so dark and deep that I could not see light.

I have, however, felt like I did not want to hear anymore noise.

I listened yesterday to the report of the people being slaughtered across the globe.  I watched the reports of the riots over the death of a young man across the country.  I saw the pics of the 2 people who kidnapped the Amish girls so as to use them for sex.  And there was more ... and more...and more....

I understand why people say they don't want to hear the news.  It is easy to fall into thinking THAT noise is only from THOSE people.  I cannot affect that or them.  I am ABOVE them so I need not even listen.

I want to do the same sometimes.

BUT, I don't know how to pretend the noise isn't there.

Or to feel like I am not a part of that noise.

Because I think that I am.

I think that we all are.

And in this day and age of constant accessibility to EVERYTHING, the din can just be deafening.

BUT,  we often create it ourselves in much smaller but still potent ways.

I read the words on one of my FB friends pages disparaging the president. Mean words. Words I refused to use about the last president with whom I did not agree but yet felt deserved more respect than that.

I hear people 'write others off' believing that they no longer are worthy of their respect because they didn't live up to their standards.   The very act of  'writing off' another human being baffles me.

I see people living together but not 'living' together.

I see people hurting each other with noise and with silence.

Sometimes that has been me.

(mostly with noise)

And then I saw the video below.

It is incredible the way we have abused the gifts of sight, sound and voice.

Helen Keller (click on name)

 "I. Am. Not. Dumb. Now."

Indeed.

So? What? Is? My? Excuse?