Shhhhh?

Like enough of the noise awready! Geesh, people?

No, I'm not talking about the sometimes nearly overwhelming noise pollution that goes hand in hand with living in a big city. Traffic sounds, horns, sirens, airplanes, construction noises. I'm not even referring to the eardrum-shattering volume of the concert and bar bands - or the door-vibrating music coming from our kid's rooms. Not even the irritating boom bass enlarging the size of the cracks on the car's windshield next to us at the stoplight.

Yeah, the noise is bad and it seems like it's getting worse. Sometimes I think about the warm, quite summer evenings from my younger days back on the farm when all there was to listen to was the crickets, a few frogs and maybe once in a while a coyote or two howling off in the distance. And I wonder, considering how the db level has skyrocketed over the past several years, why the heck I didn't have the foresight to go into audiology instead of adult education. There are fortunes to be made in that career field. So who knew??

But that's not the kind of noise that concerns me most. The one that really bothers me - and makes me wonder just where the heck we humans are headed are the noises that are blasting out of our mouths.

YOU #@*&% IDIOT - WHERE'D YOU LEARN HOW TO DRIVE!!? I WANT TO SEE YOUR MANAGER - AND I MEAN NOW!!! WOULD YOU GET YOUR FAT REAR OUTTA THE WAY!!? IF YOU DON'T CLEAN UP ALL THE CRAP IN YOUR ROOM, YOUR BUTT'S GROUNDED!!! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!!? JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!!? DO I LOOK LIKE YOUR #&%@* SLAVE!!? WHERE'S MY #%&@* KEYS!!?

Whew!

We've all heard it. On the streets, in the stores, at the ball games, on the playground, next door. And let's admit it. Almost every one of us at one time or another in our lives has "let it fly". Unfortunately, for too many of us, this kind of communication - this personalized air pollution - has become a way of life. It's what we do. It's the way we are. I've even heard people describe high volume spousal relationships as "just their way of communicating and letting off steam".

Houston, we have a problem!

One of the problems of course, is that as our volume increases the quality of our communications slides right into the crapper. Most folks normally react to shouting by implementing their most comfortable defensive action which is usually shouting right back. It becomes a "loud" contest. For sure, nobody's listening.

And if that weren't bad enough, it's unfortunately fairly common for this type of confrontation to deteriorate even further into physical altercations with frequently disastrous results. First we say it, then we do it. Grabbing, slapping, punching, pushing? The self control has vaporized and we revert to our basic animal instincts.

Yeah, we could overcome some of these tendencies by applying one of the common anger management techniques. Back off, cool off and give ourselves some time to re-evaluate the situation and circumstances that led up to the shouting match. It can help. But it's not the permanent solution.

And no, I realize that there's not much we can do about "society". There's not much we can do about all the pressures we experience just by living in these times. The pressures that tend to fertilize our aggravations and worries - and our tendencies to relieve this stress by "spoutin' off". And we can't change the fact that we perhaps grew up in a confrontational, loud household - and therefore have become programmed to act and react just like our parents did.

If we really want to though, we can change ourselves. If we're tired of the shouting or at least not thoroughly convinced that this is the best way to go through life, we can do something about it. We can change our immediate environment - our personal world - into a place that's a lot more comfortable to live in.

Just the realization that we don't need to live this way any longer if we don't want to is a major step in the right direction. But where do we go from there? If confrontational shouting is a life-limiting factor, the next step could be to seek professional help. A