Are We Becoming Allergic to Stillness?

Each morning I walk from my apartment building, through the backstreets of Windsor, to the train station on my way to work. I actually really enjoy this walk. The morning is quiet, still and calm. Noise is sparse - limited to only a few birds chirping away in the trees. I also enjoy the solitude. Ten minutes to just walk and be by myself. No need to talk. Just a chance to listen and connect with the waking world around me.

As I get closer to the station, the noise picks up. Cars scoot past, people are walking, talking, running, working, cleaning, etc. The stillness is disrupted. I'm more accutely aware of everything that is going on around me because of the stillness that has preceeded it. The quiet allows me to better appreciate the loud.

However, as I passed a number of people on my walk to the station this morning, a thought stayed with me. Are we assaulting our senses?

Many people that I pass on my way to work are trying to fill each moment they have with something to do. Take, for example, one man I stood next to on the platform this morning (well, I actually couldn't stand next to him because he was pacing up and down). He had headphones in his ears, coffeee in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He looked quite incapable of sitting still - even for just one minute. He could well have been allergic to stillness and quiet. His brain is being sent stimuli signals from his ears, mouth, hands and nose - something being registered with each sense, allowing him to be occupied for every second.

I looked around and I saw, in varying degrees, people doing exactly the same thing. People constantly fidgeting with their phones, lighting up one cigarette after another, listening to iPods, so on and so forth. Very few people were content to just be there, still, and enjoy the morning for what it was. They somehow needed to be distracted from the 'boredom' that would ensue from having to simply not be doing something.

I found this so strange and I wondered if it was a product of the type of culture that is developing all around us. Why are people behaving like this? Are we addicted to just doing "stuff"? Even when that stuff is relatively meaningless? Where did this need for fidgeting come from?