13.
Today, as in earlier times, luxury is about both status and happiness, the type that very few people are permitted to enjoy. If King Louis XVI could be given back his head, which was detached during the revolution, his face would turn green with envy over your smartphone. Up until the moment he realized that nearly everyone owns one.
Luxury is an unessential product that is also scarce—or at least if enough people believe that there is a scarcity.
As the luxury branch grows—and luxury almost has become a public right—it has come to seem more commonplace and boring. The exclusivity of a Louis Vuitton bag diminishes if everyone has one. You can buy a new purse, but regardless of how great it is you will be overtaken by other purse buyers who have even nicer purses than yours.
Some of the world’s wealthiest people live, materially speaking, moderate lives, while others choose to bathe in luxury. My experience is that all those who bathe in luxury know one thing that others do not: luxury can only provide short-lived pleasure.
I believe silence is the new luxury. Silence is more exclusive and long-lasting than other luxuries. One of my daughters put this into words, to my delight, during her summer holiday: silence is the only need that those who are on the constant lookout for the latest luxury can never attain.
One difficulty with this is that something so straightforward and simple does not necessarily fit the category of luxury; silence is also an understated luxury. The pursuit of the luxury is first and foremost about attaining something by continuously adding to it. More, more. The dopamine in the heads of customers means they constantly crave more. Silence, on the other hand, is about taking away, subtracting something.
On top of that, silence is an experience that can be had for free. And it does not need to be replaced with the next season’s luxury goods.
The chances of investing in silence—beyond peddling fancy noise-cancellation headphones, ads with people posed in desolate locations and hotels created for relaxation—are currently small. Businesspeople are mostly just about business: what they want is more, not less.
Another form of luxury is to be unavailable. To turn your back on the daily din is a privilege. Letting others take over tasks in your absence. The decision not to reply to text messages or pick up when the phone rings. Expectations from colleagues, business connections and family that are not that important to you are handed over to someone else, or ignored altogether. You have fought your way into a position where you couldn’t care less if someone wants to contact you.
Noise is also connected to class divisions. Noises made by anyone other than the person being disturbed by them, secondary sounds, set the foundation for great disparities in society. People in the lower classes are usually forced to tolerate more noise in the workplace than those in the upper classes, and their homes are poorly insulated against their neighbours’ noise. Wealthy people live in places with less noise and better air, their cars run more quietly, as do their washers and dryers. They have more free time and eat cleaner, healthier food. Silence has become part of the disparity that gives some few people the opportunity to have a longer, healthier, richer life than most others.
There are very few people who are able to avoid noise altogether. We learn to live with it because we think that we must, but noise is and remains a disturbing element that reduces our quality of life. Not only for people, but for animals as well. I love waking up to birdsong, and there have been studies on how birds react to increasing noise levels in urban areas. The conclusion is that the songs of the birds have changed. Lower tones have disappeared and been replaced by higher noises that are able to compete with human noise. One consequence of this adapted birdsong is that it has become more difficult for birds to attract a mate. Thus fewer eggs are laid. The development has been rapid, and researchers don’t know yet whether this is an evolutionary shift. The cause is closer to home: birds inhabiting urban areas are more agitated by the soundscape. Birds and people are different, but I nonetheless recognize the uncertainty they exhibit. Silence is a luxury for every living creature.