Hey! Monkeys! Oop oop oop!

It sucked growing up in a pathologically quiet place.

In a real human habitat - or, as we call it, a city - there is no necessity for the conservation of noise. Noise is abundant. Noise is available, and easily obtainable.[/size]
Noise is cheap.

So the city-dwelling man-ape has sensual satisfaction (in volume, if not in quality). He hears other people, and can make noise himself, because noise is cheap. Easily made. Easily sold. Easily forgotten.

The pathologically quiet place is now the aspiration of the American man-ape who aspires to be near (but not necessarily the at) the top of the monkey-pole.

(The winner of the rat race.)

(If you prefer.)


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In the late summer of their lives, they flock and migrate to places with big, old trees, rolling hills (which, like their investments, will have turned to gold by autumn) (and to a stucco-offwhite come winter). Ultimately, they believe, every quality individual must do so if they do not wish to come to ruin.

It is important to note that, as with any animal population, the American man-ape shows some variability in its migration patterns of its largely expendable near-elite - its beta-group, if you will. Some gather the necessary resources to relocate by their early middle-age. Most of these migrate to microregions that quickly become centers of American man-ape ritual trade ("exchange," in the species native tongue, and their temples are called "malls", dedicated to largely regional dieties like Macy's, Marshall Field, or Niemann Marcus) (the less successful American man-ape - possessor of a monotheistic faith - tended to congregate in temples dedicated to the omnipresent, omnipotent, and largely apathetic god "Walmart"). The very highest clan of the American man-ape beta-group relocate to habitats centered around small rivers that are the perfect building sites for the golf-course and the country club.

Most of the rest of the population - the vast gamma and delta groups in addition to the supreme (but always nervous, always challenged) alpha group stays at the major population centers, creating new solutions to new problems, which of course require more new solutions. In so doing, they constantly reinvent the fabric of culture - the grab-bag of mutually-recognizable symbols, rites, values, and patterns of speech - so as to keep pace with the new solutions. Lately, this population has developed mind-boggling means of communicating these symbols and their meaning to residents of other groups of man-Ape. (The alpha, gamma, and delta groups among the American man-ape are intimately connected to members of the groups among other populations - even those among them who do not realize it.)

Whether the new solution or the new cultural symbols are adopted first changes over time. At times, new solutions - especially devices for making the production of food or goods - take place shortly before the adoption of the new symbolic framework. This can be a very short interval indeed. When the man-ape developed the capabilities of recorded visual and, later, aural events and distribute them over great distances (the "cinemascope" and the "long-playing record," for instance) was followed almost immediately by an exchange of cultural tools between the different populations. Nevertheless, careful analysis shows that large-scale adoption of these changes slightly preceded changes in the adoption of new cultural tools (bathing at the beach, in the case of the cinemascope; "Beatle-mania," in the case of long-playing record). The small subgroups of these populations that were able to spread the coming cultural tools before the adoption of its new solutions tended to be among many other groups predicting other changes that were never realized, and were largely ignored by the generations that followed - though an adoptive ancestory-worship of these earlier communicators sometimes flourish among groups that follow.
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So, it really sucked growing up in a pathologically quiet place. The least well-informed, least capable member of the beta group came running to you from the other groups. They couldn't handle them, and so they never exchanged ideas, habits, or easy communication that the dynamic groups, the groups that spawned blues/jazz/rock/country/soul/hip-hop/film or opera/symphony/theater/film like the groups they fled from did.

Those there already did one of two things. They improved on the ways of their forebears (and, just as often, betrayed them) without strong pressures to move on or die out.

Of they dreamed of leaving, the sooner the better, so as not to arrive old and inflexible and unable to move forward. The sooner the better.

It sucked growing up in a pathologically quiet place.