During my week-long hiatus from human-generated cacophony, I realized how much human noise bothers me, makes my life worse, makes me less cognitively-capable and less focused.

My IQ seriously drops. I bet if you gave me an IQ test after a week in a city, I’d probably score 10-15 points lower than after a week sans human aural clutter.

I’m not some Ted Kaczynski wannabe, desirous of living in a one-room shack with no electricity and no running water. No, my ideal is living 20 miles out of the city on a compound — with a fiber optic connection and an assload of 5K monitors.

No technophobia here. Just the desire to not have a bunch of chatter, clatter and the daily brutish batter of sonic assaults from every side.