There’s a romantic notion put forth by television and movies that the roar of a waterfall or a dammed river provides a kind of meditative quality when our protagonists witness it.
Perhaps they’ll spend a moment to meditate under the crashing whitewater, becoming as still and as permanent as one of the riverbed stones it normally dashes upon; or that after stepping through, or travelling alongside, the audio guy fixes for the noise and you hear the passing and bubbling of a trillion buckets of sweet-water as a calming hum or hiss. But to anyone who has stood next to such a calamity, I suspect this illusion is a distant fantasy as the roar digs into your brain and pulls reason from your skull.
We like to romanticize these forces of nature, as if we had some kind of supernatural authority over them in post-editing. Maybe we do, to an extent, even in our own memories. The ringing of church bells stings like a wasp should you stand too close, but the sting turns sweet upon reflection. The concert you wish you brought ear-plugs to, the roar of engines unleashed on a proper bit of tarmac, or the whoosh of the jet sitting outside your window as you climb into the great beyond: all of these seem like lesser, prettier versions of themselves when you look back.
Posted under Manifestoes