Download or read book Silence written by Erling Kagge and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is silence? Where can it be found? Why is it now more important than ever? In 1993, Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge spent fifty days walking solo across Antarctica, becoming the first person to reach the South Pole alone, accompanied only by a radio whose batteries he had removed before setting out. In this book. an astonishing and transformative meditation, Kagge explores the silence around us, the silence within us, and the silence we must create. By recounting his own experiences and discussing the observations of poets, artists, and explorers, Kagge shows us why silence is essential to sanity and happiness—and how it can open doors to wonder and gratitude. (With full-color photographs throughout.)
Download or read book Listening to Noise and Silence written by Salome Voegelin and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-03-31 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh, bold study of the emerging field of Sound Art, informed by the ideas of Adorno, Merleau-Ponty and others.
Download or read book In Pursuit of Silence written by George Prochnik and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2010-04-06 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An "elegant and eloquent" (New York Times) exploration of the frontiers of noise and silence, and the growing war between them. Between iPods, music-blasting restaurants, earsplitting sports stadiums, and endless air and road traffic, the place for quiet in our lives grows smaller by the day. In Pursuit of Silence gives context to our increasingly desperate sense that noise pollution is, in a very real way, an environmental catastrophe. Traveling across the country and meeting and listening to a host of incredible characters, including doctors, neuroscientists, acoustical engineers, monks, activists, educators, marketers, and aggrieved citizens, George Prochnik examines why we began to be so loud as a society, and what it is that gets lost when we can no longer find quiet.
Download or read book The Power of Silence written by Robert Sarah and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2017-03-30 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now with a new afterword by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI! In a time when technology penetrates our lives in so many ways and materialism exerts such a powerful influence over us, Cardinal Robert Sarah presents a bold book about the strength of silence. The modern world generates so much noise, he says, that seeking moments of silence has become both harder and more necessary than ever before. Silence is the indispensable doorway to the divine, explains the cardinal in this profound conversation with Nicolas Diat. Within the hushed and hallowed walls of the La Grande Chartreux, the famous Carthusian monastery in the French Alps, Cardinal Sarah addresses the following questions: Can those who do not know silence ever attain truth, beauty, or love? Do not wisdom, artistic vision, and devotion spring from silence, where the voice of God is heard in the depths of the human heart? After the international success of God or Nothing, Cardinal Sarah seeks to restore to silence its place of honor and importance. "Silence is more important than any other human work," he says, "for it expresses God. The true revolution comes from silence; it leads us toward God and others so as to place ourselves humbly and generously at their service."
Download or read book Shouting Won t Help written by Katherine Bouton and published by Sarah Crichton Books. This book was released on 2013-02-19 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For twenty-two years, Katherine Bouton had a secret that grew harder to keep every day. An editor at The New York Times, at daily editorial meetings she couldn't hear what her colleagues were saying. She had gone profoundly deaf in her left ear; her right was getting worse. As she once put it, she was "the kind of person who might have used an ear trumpet in the nineteenth century." Audiologists agree that we're experiencing a national epidemic of hearing impairment. At present, 50 million Americans suffer some degree of hearing loss—17 percent of the population. And hearing loss is not exclusively a product of growing old. The usual onset is between the ages of nineteen and forty-four, and in many cases the cause is unknown. Shouting Won't Help is a deftly written, deeply felt look at a widespread and misunderstood phenomenon. In the style of Jerome Groopman and Atul Gawande, and using her experience as a guide, Bouton examines the problem personally, psychologically, and physiologically. She speaks with doctors, audiologists, and neurobiologists, and with a variety of people afflicted with midlife hearing loss, braiding their stories with her own to illuminate the startling effects of the condition. The result is a surprisingly engaging account of what it's like to live with an invisible disability—and a robust prescription for our nation's increasing problem with deafness. A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013
Download or read book The Longing for Less written by Kyle Chayka and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New Yorker staff writer and Filterworld author Kyle Chayka examines the deep roots-and untapped possibilities-of our newfound, all-consuming drive to reduce. “Less is more”: Everywhere we hear the mantra. Marie Kondo and other decluttering gurus promise that shedding our stuff will solve our problems. We commit to cleanse diets and strive for inbox zero. Amid the frantic pace and distraction of everyday life, we covet silence-and airy, Instagrammable spaces in which to enjoy it. The popular term for this brand of upscale austerity, “minimalism,” has mostly come to stand for things to buy and consume. But minimalism has richer, deeper, and altogether more valuable gifts to offer. In The Longing for Less, one of our sharpest cultural critics delves beneath the glossy surface of minimalist trends, seeking better ways to claim the time and space we crave. Kyle Chayka's search leads him to the philosophical and spiritual origins of minimalism, and to the stories of artists such as Agnes Martin and Donald Judd; composers such as John Cage and Julius Eastman; architects and designers; visionaries and misfits. As Chayka looks anew at their extraordinary lives and explores the places where they worked-from Manhattan lofts to the Texas high desert and the back alleys of Kyoto-he reminds us that what we most require is presence, not absence. The result is an elegant synthesis of our minimalist desires and our profound emotional needs. With a new afterword by the author.
Download or read book Golden written by Justin Zorn and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Silence isn’t just the absence of noise. It’s a presence that brings us energy, clarity, and deeper connection. Justin Zorn and Leigh Marz take us on an unlikely journey—from the West Wing of the White House to San Quentin’s death row; from Ivy League brain research laboratories to underground psychedelic circles; from the temperate rainforests of Olympic National Park to the main stage at a heavy metal festival—to explore the meaning of silence and the art of finding it in any situation. Golden reveals how to go beyond the ordinary rules and tools of mindfulness. It’s a field guide for navigating the noise of the modern world—not just the noise in our ears but also on our screens and in our heads. Drawing on lessons from neuroscience, business, spirituality, politics, and the arts, Marz and Zorn explore why auditory, informational, and internal silence is essential for physical health, mental clarity, ecological sustainability, and vibrant community. With vital lessons for individuals, families, workplaces, and whole societies, Golden is an engaging and unexpected rethinking of the meaning of quiet. Marz and Zorn make the bold and convincing argument that we can repair our world by reclaiming the presence of silence in our lives.
Download or read book Silence written by Thich Nhat Hanh and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Zen master and one of the world's most beloved teachers returns with a concise, practical guide to understanding and developing our most powerful inner resource—silence—to help us find happiness, purpose, and peace. Many people embark on a seemingly futile search for happiness, running as if there is somewhere else to get to, when the world they live in is full of wonder. To be alive is a miracle. Beauty calls to us every day, yet we rarely are in the position to listen. To hear the call of beauty and respond to it, we need silence. Silence shows us how to find and maintain our equanimity amid the barrage of noise. Thich Nhat Hanh guides us on a path to cultivate calm even in the most chaotic places. This gift of silence doesn't require hours upon hours of silent meditation or an existing practice of any kind. Through careful breathing and mindfulness techniques he teaches us how to become truly present in the moment, to recognize the beauty surrounding us, and to find harmony. With mindfulness comes stillness—and the silence we need to come back to ourselves and discover who we are and what we truly want, the keys to happiness and well-being.
Download or read book Walking written by Erling Kagge and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-04-17 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned explorer and acclaimed author shows us that walking is a natural accompaniment to creativity—and among the most radical things we can do. “Simple, profound … compelling … [a book that] packs a surprisingly motivational punch” (GQ). Why do we walk? Where do we walk from? What is our destination? Placing one foot in front of the other and embarking on the journey of discovery are activities intrinsic to our nature. But as universal as walking is, each of us will experience it differently. For renowned explorer Erling Kagge, walking is a natural accompaniment to creativity: the occasion for the unspoken dialogue of thinking. Walking is also the antidote to the speed at which we conduct our lives, to our insistence on rushing, on doing everything in a precipitous manner.
Download or read book Listening Below the Noise written by Anne D. LeClaire and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-01-29 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Listening Below the Noise offers readers the possibility of finding grace and peace in the natural world and in ourselves. Elegant and honest… one of those rare books that finds its way into our hearts, and stays there.” — Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle A meditation on silence, the art of being present, and simple spirituality from critically acclaimed novelist Anne D. LeClaire (Entering Normal, The Lavender Hour), Listening Below the Noise offers a practical path to achieving calm, peaceful solitude in hectic lives. Practitioners of yoga and meditation of various traditions have long known the curative powers of stillness; in Listening Below the Noise, LeClaire offers her own unique, compelling version of this ancient wisdom tradition.
Download or read book Noisy Silence written by Theresa Green and published by . This book was released on 2019-02-12 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theresa Green's approach to life in this book is an eyeopener to all who will read it. Theresa takes the reader on the journey of her life and the desire to get closer to God. From being abused to feeling insecure, Theresa's transparency is a clever strategy to helping readers reach their deliverance. Take this journey with the author to reach your breakthrough in God.
Download or read book Sound Image Silence written by Michael Gaudio and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A visionary new approach to the Americas during the age of colonization, made by engaging with the aural aspects of supposedly “silent” images Colonial depictions of the North and South American landscape and its indigenous inhabitants fundamentally transformed the European imagination—but how did those images reach Europe, and how did they make their impact? In Sound, Image, Silence, noted art historian Michael Gaudio provides a groundbreaking examination of the colonial Americas by exploring the special role that aural imagination played in visible representations of the New World. Considering a diverse body of images that cover four hundred years of Atlantic history, Sound, Image, Silence addresses an important need within art history: to give hearing its due as a sense that can inform our understanding of images. Gaudio locates the noise of the pagan dance, the discord of battle, the din of revivalist religion, and the sublime sounds of nature in the Americas, such as lightning, thunder, and the waterfall. He invites readers to listen to visual media that seem deceptively couched in silence, offering bold new ideas on how art historians can engage with sound in inherently “mute” media. Sound, Image, Silence includes readings of Brazilian landscapes by the Dutch painter Frans Post, a London portrait of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison’s early Kinetoscope film Sioux Ghost Dance, and the work of Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of American landscape painting. It masterfully fuses a diversity of work across vast social, cultural, and spatial distances, giving us both a new way of understanding sound in art and a powerful new vision of the New World.
Download or read book One Square Inch of Silence written by Gordon Hempton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-03-31 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the visionary tradition of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, One Square Inch of Silence alerts us to beauty that we take for granted and sounds an urgent environmental alarm. Natural silence is our nation’s fastest-disappearing resource, warns Emmy-winning acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, who has made it his mission to record and preserve it in all its variety—before these soul-soothing terrestrial soundscapes vanish completely in the ever-rising din of man-made noise. Recalling the great works on nature written by John Muir, John McPhee, and Peter Matthiessen, this beautifully written narrative, co-authored with John Grossmann, is also a quintessentially American story—a road trip across the continent from west to east in a 1964 VW bus. But no one has crossed America like this. Armed with his recording equipment and a decibel-measuring sound-level meter, Hempton bends an inquisitive and loving ear to the varied natural voices of the American landscape—bugling elk, trilling thrushes, and drumming, endangered prairie chickens. He is an equally patient and perceptive listener when talking with people he meets on his journey about the importance of quiet in their lives. By the time he reaches his destination, Washington, D.C., where he meets with federal officials to press his case for natural silence preservation, Hempton has produced a historic and unforgettable sonic record of America. With the incisiveness of Jack Kerouac’s observations on the road and the stirring wisdom of Robert Pirsig repairing an aging vehicle and his life, One Square Inch of Silence provides a moving call to action. More than simply a book, it is an actual place, too, located in one of America’s last naturally quiet places, in Olympic National Park in Washington State.
Download or read book Rediscovering Silence written by Will Gray and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an increasingly noisy, distracting world, the idea of enjoying silence-healthy silence-has become for many people just a mirage. We talk about ""a little peace and quiet"" not because we experience it regularly, but because it's a joke we tell ourselves when we're overwhelmed. Silence is on the endangered experiences list. Today, if you're lik.
Download or read book Robot Learning written by Suraiya Jabin and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2010-08-12 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robot Learning is intended for one term advanced Machine Learning courses taken by students from different computer science research disciplines. This text has all the features of a renowned best selling text. It gives a focused introduction to the primary themes in a Robot learning course and demonstrates the relevance and practicality of various Machine Learning algorithms to a wide variety of real-world applications from evolutionary techniques to reinforcement learning, classification, control, uncertainty and many other important fields. Salient features: - Comprehensive coverage of Evolutionary Techniques, Reinforcement Learning and Uncertainty. - Precise mathematical language used without excessive formalism and abstraction. - Included applications demonstrate the utility of the subject in terms of real-world problems. - A separate chapter on Anticipatory-mechanisms-of-human-sensory-motor-coordination and biped locomotion. - Collection of most recent research on Robot Learning.
Download or read book Sound Curriculum written by Walter S. Gershon and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-06-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of a growing group of works that addresses the burgeoning field of sound studies, this book attends not only to theoretical and empirical examinations, but also to methodological and philosophical considerations at the intersection of sound and education. Gershon theoretically advances the rapidly expanding field of sound studies and simultaneously deepens conceptualizations and educational understandings across the fields of curriculum studies and foundations of education. A feature of this work is the novel use of audio files aligned with the arguments within the book as well as the discussion and application of cutting-edge qualitative research methods.
Download or read book The Role of Working Memory and Executive Function in Communication under Adverse Conditions written by Mary Rudner and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2016-06-20 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Communication is vital for social participation. However, communication often takes place under suboptimal conditions. This makes communication harder and less reliable, leading at worst to social isolation. In order to promote participation, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms underlying communication in different situations. Human communication is often speech based, either oral or written, but may also involve gesture, either accompanying speech or in the form of sign language. For communication to be achieved, a signal generated by one person has to be perceived by another person, attended to, comprehended and responded to. This process may be hindered by adverse conditions including factors that may be internal to the sender (e.g. incomplete or idiosyncratic language production), occur during transmission (e.g. background noise or signal processing) or be internal to the receiver (e.g. poor grasp of the language or sensory impairment). The extent to which these factors interact to generate adverse conditions may differ across the lifespan. Recent work has shown that successful speech communication under adverse conditions is associated with good cognitive capacity including efficient working memory and executive abilities such as updating and inhibition. Further, frontoparietal networks associated with working memory and executive function have been shown to be activated to a greater degree when it is harder to achieve speech comprehension. To date, less work has focused on sign language communication under adverse conditions or the role of gestures accompanying speech communication under adverse conditions. It has been proposed that the role of working memory in communication under such conditions is to keep fragments of an incomplete signal in mind, updating them as appropriate and inhibiting irrelevant information, until an adequate match can be achieved with lexical and semantic representations held in long term memory. Recent models of working memory highlight an episodic buffer whose role is the multimodal integration of information from the senses and long term memory. It is likely that the episodic buffer plays a key role in communication under adverse conditions. The aim of this research topic is to draw together multiple perspectives on communication under adverse conditions including empirical and theoretical approaches. This will facilitate a scientific exchange among individual scientists and groups studying different aspects of communication under adverse conditions and/or the role of cognition in communication. As such, this topic belongs firmly within the field of Cognitive Hearing Science. Exchange of ideas among scientists with different perspectives on these issues will allow researchers to identify and highlight the way in which different internal and external factors interact to make communication in different modalities more or less successful across the lifespan. Such exchange is the forerunner of broader dissemination of results which ultimately, may make it possible to take measures to reduce adverse conditions, thus facilitating communication. Such measures might be implemented in relation to the built environment, the design of hearing aids and public awareness.
