White Noise

We are all shouting at the world, and it's strangely hard to hear.

White Noise

“Hey, A*****e! I’m right here!” My mother hollers as a cherry Camaro flies past the suggested stop sign. At this moment, time slows down. I glance over at my mom and take note of her expression: her anger is mellowed by a feeling of security and justification. It is here I realize why we honk our car horns. It’s a re-assertion of the self. A reminder to other motorists that you’re there too. When my mom honked at that Camaro, she held no expectation to that car. She wasn’t expecting him to whip the vehicle around and apologize to her in person with a sincere, “I am so sorry madam. I am absolutely ashamed of my behavior, and am mortified that I endangered the security of you and your precious children.” That would never happen, and that’s not why she did it. She honked her horn to remind him that she was there, and more importantly to remind herself that she was there. We honk our horns to make sure everyone can still hear us. Everyone wants to be heard, so we shout at the world whenever we get the chance to open our mouths. With so many people shouting, it gets hard to hear ourselves sometimes. I believe in car horns as a reminder that we are here.

While I was in Chicago, I used the metro to get from place to place. Everyday on that train ride, I passed what seemed to be an infinity of graffiti. A massive canvas of urban Van Goghs. Over the years, thousands of teens made their mark on those walls. They sought to establish their identity on that little patch of concrete. but as the train sped by, the unique tags blurred into technicolor vomit. De-Shawne, Biggy G Tim, L-A, Banksy, all wanted to carve their own slice out of the Chicago walls. They honked their horns in their own way. Each tag a voice shouting out to the city. They all wanted to stand out, but ended up making more white noise. It’s not their fault. It’s hard to tell if you’re stepping out, or walking in place. 

Every day, we all honk our car horns in our own way.  We dream, we write, we paint, we laugh, and we love. Life moves too fast. In the blink of an eye we’re here and gone. There are 7 billion tiny voices on an atom of a speck of dust, and every one of them wants to be heard. So we honk our horns, shout, and stamp our feet. We build monuments to last the millennia, we create master pieces of literature that echo through time, and we shout at the sky and never stop because we can’t bear the silence. If the world grew quiet what would happen? Would we all just fade away? Maybe we’d hear something we couldn’t before, but a world full of singers simply cant fall silent. I believe in car horns. I believe that everyone, from the crazed ex-con selling meth out of his van to the business man who’s running late again, honks his horn for the same reason. To say the one thing they can be sure of: that they are here, and that they can. I believe in car horns.