On the 5th floor of number 25, Madrid’s bustling Princess Street, there is a space called “Something More Than Silence”. This is a completely empty space with large windows, which can be visited by anyone who wants to disconnect from the city noise.

Those who wish can attend silent meditation classes, and the rest can simply enjoy the silence in their own way. According to El Pais, there are no registration fees or enrollment requirements, and for courses, everyone pays what they can.

“The project arose out of a need for silence. We wanted to create an oasis in the middle of the city to take a break from these noises, to work on our inner silence and thus alleviate … outer silence,” explains Elena Hernandez, who works there, voluntarily adding that “without silence, we lose our freedom and we don’t listen to ourselves.”

Silence Center

This special “center of silence” is not the only one in Madrid, as at least five such centers have opened in the capital. Americans are also looking for similar ways of self-isolation, who resort to “sensory isolation capsules” in search of peace.

These capsules were created in 1954 by neuroscientist John Lilly while he was working for the US government and are essentially capsules filled with salt water. These capsules then had the goal of an intensive study of the human mind when it is devoid of as many external stimuli as possible.

In addition to the above, technology also seeks to be allies of peace of mind: in 2019, Apple released AirPods Pro with “noise canceling” functionality. Netflix released a successful meditation guide called Headspace in 2021, while Spotify offers meditation and white noise playlists and podcasts.

From the above it becomes clear that silence has become a precious commodity, a kind of luxury in a society in which haste has become a way of life.

After all, the French mathematician, physicist and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote about this. “All the problems of mankind come from the fact that a person cannot sit quietly in a room alone,” he said. Of course, Pascal would never have thought that sitting quietly in a room with a smartphone in hand would not provide you with isolation.

On the other hand, distractions are a topic that the University of Oxford has been dealing with more and more in recent years. On this occasion, professor James Williams, who specializes in ethics, said: “In the short term, distractions can prevent us from doing what we want. But in the long run, they can accumulate and prevent us from living the life we ​​want to live, or worse, undermine our abilities.”

Source: El Pais