When I was younger, it bothered me tremendously that I couldn’t think straight in noisy places. I thought it was some defect of my mind that I had trouble feeling spiritual in the midst of commotion. Recently, I heard about some research that showed that, although we can become used to noise in the sense that we filter it out of our conscious attention, it still affects us and causes us stress.

We can ignore background noise, but it still wears down on us.

This interests me, because if stress hinders the development of spiritual feelings—if we need to feel peaceful in order to recharge our spiritual “batteries,” then there’s concrete proof that quiet is good for the spirit.

To put it another way, I have justification for wanting to jet away to some remote location to rejuvenate after too many consecutive days of city living.