written in a comment elsewhere

I wrote this (slightly edited):

...there are a lot of people who think they can run from or at least drown out the voices in their heads. Maybe because most people are so social, they thrive on noise—the sounds of other people jabbering and blathering and singing and shouting and just filling the silence with ear garbage and other arrant bullshit. Sitting these people down for a 20-minute meditation session—in which you just sit, drink in the quiet, and start to feel the oceanic rhythms of your consciousness—would drive them nuts because they're so superficial and so noise-addicted that silence actually makes them uncomfortable. So they're unwilling to face the silence. Because they don't want to confront the voices. A shame, really. It's like sitting with a chatterbox who doesn't know when to shut the fuck up. If he doesn't hear a voice, he'll talk just so there's sound. I've ridden with taxi drivers who, to fill the silence, would reflexively turn on the radio just to have the comforting presence of sound. For some people, silence is oppressive. I pity them.

The above isn't meant to say that no one should ever talk or engage in noisy self-expression. It is, however, a comment on the old wisdom that the babbling brook is shallow while still waters run deep. And I'm not making myself out to be an enlightened guru in this regard: hell, I talk out loud to myself during my long walks, sometimes to the point of telling myself to shut up.