I heard recently a thought that I want to record here:
silence is mind's essential nutrient.

The primeval world for thousands of years of our history was mostly silent.
Sound was a signal for the brain to switch on and pay attention. A broken twig
or disturbed pebble might mean that something is approaching, an opportunity or
danger. The brain must have been good at detecting subtle signals because their
potential payload was of existential value. It meant: pay attention closely.

Attention is costly and finite. Nowadays we behave as though attention was free
and infinite and we can just spurge out and constantly spend, spend, spend, from
morning until night.

Yes, one can get desensitized to certain repeating patterns, but what if one
gets desensitized to most of reality because one is constantly bombarding
oneself actively as well as being bombarded passively by signal and noise, so
much so that one can no longer distinguish between where one ends and another
begins. How can one retain the ability to pay attention then, when one's life is
just training the exhausted brain to float in soup of lukewarm noise endlessly?

Silence lets the brain know: you can rest now and recharge for your next quest.
Silence means safety. Safety means we can let go of stress of preparedness.

And yet we have this habit often of torturing ourselves willingly by killing
opportunities where silence would occur normally in our lives. For example: I am
alone at home now. Most often I am not, because I live in a home with three
generations of people, from 1.5 year old to 60 year old. Rarely are they all out
at the same time. I could put on some music for example but how often can I
enjoy total silence in this place? I feel my brain resting as I hear the quiet
hum of my server and UPS. Just me, this hum, mechanical keyboard, vim, and this
text in front of me. Meditative almost.