I find people endlessly fascinating. When they don’t get what they want, they suffer. When they get what they don’t want, they suffer. And when they finally, miraculously, get exactly what they want? Well, they suffer even more.
Because deep down—beneath the hollow triumphs, the overpriced champagne toasts, the exhausting parties with people they secretly despise, the desperate scramble for fleeting fame, the Lamborghinis leased for Instagram, the mile-high-club mischiefs that require a seatbelt sign of shame, and the forced smiles while poolside with the president—everyone knows the truth. Nothing lasts forever. Life’s cup, which they so bravely try to fill, is, in reality, bottomless. And the more they pour in, the emptier it seems.
Cheers to that.
This is, as far as I can tell, one of life’s most frustrating paradoxes.
You’d think evolution might have come up with a workaround for this by now.
A toggle switch for contentment, maybe, or at least a built-in warranty for happiness.
But no. Instead, we’re all stuck navigating a never-ending cycle of desires, disappointments, and existential dread. Amen.
Another of life’s irritating riddles—and this one, literally, has kept me awake far too many nights—is why it seems categorically impossible to find a single silent spot in the world anymore.
Anywhere.
Urban, suburban, jungle, desert, on top of a lonely mountain, underground, on the bottom of the ocean—it doesn’t matter.
On land, on sea, or even midair in what’s supposed to be the serene isolation of a long-haul flight.
I’ve tested this theory in Canada’s Yukon, Kenya’s Maasai Mara, and the sprawling nothingness of Wyoming.
I even dared to venture—believe it or not—into Nebraska, the closest thing Earth has to a vacuum.
And yet, without fail, every time—every bloody single time—some living entity will potter along and make an horrific racket.
An owl squawking like it’s auditioning for a horror film.
An annoying mosquito buzzing in a weaponised frequency.
Or some grizzled geriatric with a portable radio, broadcasting tinny, distorted polka music across miles of otherwise untouched wilderness.
It’s like the universe has an active grudge against silence. It seems no patch of it is sacred.
And so, this is the inescapable truth of our modern existence:
No matter how remote, bleak, barren, or otherwise devoid of life a place appears, something will always show up to fill the void with pestilent noise.
It’s as if the cosmos is actively conspiring to remind us that peace and quiet were never part of the deal.
Silencio, por favor
Ta-Ha-Zouka Park, Norfolk, Nebraska, 2016
As a general rule, the mere mention of Nebraska tends to evoke mental images of a grim, abandoned wasteland—a place so devoid of life that even tumbleweeds might think twice about rolling through.
For most people, it conjures up an almost post-apocalyptic emptiness. A place where you wouldn’t look twice if a lonely Stegosaurus meandered across the plains or a herd of Triceratops grazed peacefully under the indifferent Nebraska sky.
Sure, dinosaurs are supposed to be extinct, but let’s be honest—if they were going to stage a comeback anywhere, Nebraska seems like the kind of place they could do it unnoticed for centuries.
After all, who’s looking?
To say Nebraska is bleak would be unfair—to the moon.
Earth’s trusty satellite might have craters and desolation, but at least it has a certain charm. Nebraska, on the other hand, feels like the kind of place you’d choose to hide not just from predators but from existence itself.
With that in mind, one might understandably expect a night spent camping in Nebraska to offer unparalleled peace and quiet. Surely, this is the one place in America where silence might reign supreme.
Regrettably, this was not our experience.
We had chosen a cozy little campground off Highway 81 during our motorcycle odyssey from Manhattan to Malibu. It was supposed to be... well, nothing, really. We were just passing through without so much as a brief thought about it. After all, what is there to think about Nebraska, anyway? Other than corn, Cornhuskers, and the creeping suspicion that fun would venture here to die.
Now, as seasoned travellers, my wife and I have perfected the art of setting up camp. After more than 80,000 miles together on this particular bike, we operate like a well-oiled machine.
The routine is simple: she jogs to the reception to handle the formalities while I scout out the perfect patch of ground for our tent.
This process is not without its quirks. I approach site selection with the precision of an archaeologist digging up ancient ruins. On my hands and knees, I inspect the terrain for potential hazards: fresh animal droppings, active ant hills, or any other lurking threats to our temporary sanctuary.
It’s a ritual born of experience and, perhaps, a touch of paranoia.
Little did we know that our meticulous preparations would soon be rendered irrelevant by Nebraska’s hidden talent for disrupting even the best-laid plans.
The evening’s itinerary is always relatively straightforward: unpack the bike, erect the tent, start a fire, consume a hearty combination of beer, bagels, and beans, and then drift off to sleep. Simple, efficient, and time-tested. Assuming, of course, that everything goes as planned. Which, naturally, it didn’t.
Sound, as I understand it, travels through air at a brisk 1,125 feet per second. It gently caresses your eardrums, vibrating them just enough to deliver a melody or a whisper of the wind. This is often a soothing experience—unless someone decides to weaponise it. For example, by planting a concert-sized loudspeaker directly next to your ear and assaulting your fragile middle ear membrane with full-volume Jay-Z rap. Or worse still—Mexican ghetto rap—which doesn’t qualify as Rap at all. Come to think of it, it’s not even remotely related to the idea of music.
This is precisely how I found myself brutally launched out of what was shaping up to be a promising slumber. The culprit? A boom box on wheels. The air around me vibrated so violently that I suspect my skeletal structure briefly disassembled itself before snapping back into place, just in time to register the unholy cacophony emanating from this mobile sound factory.
Seconds later, the ear-splitting noise vanished as abruptly as it had appeared. Silence reclaimed the night. I sighed with relief, adjusted my sleeping bag, and prepared to drift off again.
But, of course, peace isn’t permanent.
Approximately thirty minutes later, the aural nightmare returned. This time, I sat up and peered out of the tent, hoping to identify the source of my torment.
The perpetrator revealed itself: a low-rider vintage car, crawling through the streets with its windows wide open. On its roof sat a sound system so massive it looked like it had been stolen from a music festival. The car’s interior was crammed with what, at first glance, appeared to be a happy horde of hobbits. Upon closer inspection, these turned out to be a pack of determined-looking Latinos who could barely see over the steering wheel.
It was like something out of a low-budget action movie, but with significantly worse taste in soundtracks. The car’s dwarfish occupants seemed to be on a mission to inspire terror—or perhaps deafness—in all who crossed their path. They circled the town like a particularly noisy comet, leaving destruction (or at least severe annoyance) in their wake.
For reasons known only to them and their maker, this merry troop spent the entire night cruising in cheerful, eardrum-shattering circles. Like clockwork, they passed our campground every thirty minutes, their musical onslaught ensuring that no one within a five-mile radius would know a moment’s rest.
Sleep, as it turns out, was not on the evening’s itinerary after all.
To our astonishment, nobody else in the campground seemed remotely bothered by this nocturnal mayhem. Not a single soul stirred. Then again, they were all Mexicans too—how had we not noticed this before? It should have been obvious. From prior experience, we knew that South Americans and Caribbeans treat sunrise as the unofficial end of their day. Sleep? An overrated concept, evidently. And as for partying all night? That’s practically a cultural obligation.
Looking back, sleeping in an active volcano might have been a more restful option, but what could we do? By the time we realised our mistake, it was far too late—or perhaps too early—to pack up and find somewhere else to stay. So, we resigned ourselves to our fate and silently vowed that at the next campground, we would be far more attentive to the predominant ethnic demographic.
The following morning, our attempts to reclaim our camping fee from the office were met with the same level of success as our attempts to sleep: absolute failure. However, we did come away with some unexpected intel about our nocturnal tormentors. Apparently, a few weeks prior, this very same group of rap-enthusiast Latinos had stabbed a camper who dared to complain about their nocturnal choice of entertainment.
Suitably enlightened, we decided to quit while we were still among the living. At the first light of dawn, we gathered our gear with as much commotion as we could muster, packed up the bike, and rode off in search of solace and sustenance. McDonald’s seemed like the safe choosing for a bleary-eyed breakfast.
But as we pulled into the parking lot, the unmistakable thump of loathsome Latino rap assaulted our ears yet again. It was blaring from the very same despicable concert-sized loudspeaker mounted atop the very same car.
And there they were—the splinters in our heads, the insults to our ears, our nocturnal nemeses—parked at the drive-thru counter, still partying as if the night had no end. The bass from their monstrous speaker rattled the McDonald's sign, while the staff inside—wearing road-worker-grade protective ear gear to stave off permanent hearing loss—looked as though they'd long since given up on their existences, the purpose of life, or at the very least, noise complaints.
At that point, we could only shake our heads and laugh. After all, what else was there to do? Little did we know, this was merely the opening act. Many more campgrounds—and sleepless nights—awaited us on our journey.
But that’s another story.
Marcel Romdane
