The Constant Hum
We have drowned the stars in our own light, replacing the wild signals of the universe with a constant, electronic hum. The augmented world is seductive, but the truth isn't in the overlay. It's in the raw, imperfect world that has been speaking to us all along.
Once, the night was full of stars. They hung above us like a vast, unblinking city of fire.
They are still there, of course, but we no longer see them.
We have drowned them in our own light.
This is the project of our age: to replace the wild signals of the Universe with a steady, manageable stream of our own invention. We have traded the infinite for the convenient, the untamed for the tame. The spectacle of the cosmos, for the glow of the streetlamp.
We begin with the ears.
The earbud is no longer a tool, it is a filter, a gatekeeper. It overlays the raw soundscape of the world with a soundtrack of our choosing. It paints over the silence, the randomness, the suddenness of life with something smoother, more predictable: a constant hum.
Now we move to the eyes.
Augmented reality waits in the wings, promising to wrap the visible world in layers of data, alerts, advertisements - information so constant and frictionless that the underlying world might as well not exist.
It is seductive.
The augmented world is never indifferent. It is designed for us, around us, about us. It spares us the discomfort of the vast, impersonal Universe, that terrible beauty that does not care if we exist.
But...
Take them out. The earbuds. The glasses. The overlays.
Step outside the hum.
Listen to the gentle waves along the Gulf.
Listen to the wind folding itself through the trees.
Listen to the far-off growl of thunder.
Listen to the ragged, chaotic orchestra of a city street.
Because the signal we’re searching for is not in the feed.
It’s in the static.
The truth is not in the overlay.
It is in the unedited, unpolished, beautifully imperfect world that has been speaking to us all along,
if only we could still hear it.
