Living Quietly in a Loud World

Living Quietly in a Loud World: Why Ovid Still Matters

Having recently attended a family funeral, it got me thinking about what is a good life? Can we live quietly and happily and it be a good life? Ovid, writing from the heart of the Roman Empire, offered a piece of advice that feels almost subversive today: live obscurely and quietly. In a culture that prized status, reputation, and proximity to power, Ovid suggested that a good life might be found not in visibility, but in withdrawal. Two thousand years later, in Western culture saturated by exposure, performance, and relentless self-promotion, his idea feels newly relevant.

The Tyranny of Visibility

Contemporary Western life is organised around being seen. Social media, professional branding, and productivity culture reward those who are vocal, visible, and constantly active. To exist quietly can feel like failure, or worse, irrelevance. We are encouraged to curate ourselves, to turn our lives into narratives that can be consumed and approved of by others. It has become an extrovert world!

Yet this constant visibility comes at a cost. When our attention is always outward-facing, we become increasingly alienated from our inner lives. The pressure to be noticed fosters anxiety, comparison, and a fragile sense of self-worth dependent on external validation. Ovid’s suggestion pushes back against this: obscurity is not deprivation, but protection.

Quiet as Psychological Freedom

Living quietly offers a particular kind of freedom - freedom from performance. When we are not always being watched, measured, or evaluated, we can listen more closely to our own rhythms, desires, and limits. A quieter life allows space for reflection, creativity, and depth, rather than speed and surface.

In psychological terms, obscurity reduces the dominance of the social gaze. It softens the internalised critic shaped by cultural expectations and allows a more relational, embodied self to emerge. This is not isolation, but selective engagement: choosing intimacy over audience.

Resistance to Power and Extraction

From a feminist and critical perspective, Ovid’s advice can also be read as quietly radical. Modern Western systems often extract value from people by turning their identities, labour, and even suffering into content. To live obscurely is to resist being endlessly mined for productivity, relevance, or profit. If you have watched The Social Dilemma (2020) on Netflix, you would have heard the line “If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product”  stated by Tristan Harris, former Google employee.

Choosing a quieter life challenges the idea that worth must be proven publicly. It refuses the demand - often placed most heavily on marginalised bodies - to justify existence through visibility, achievement, or explanation. Obscurity can thus become an ethical stance, a way of reclaiming autonomy.

Depth Over Scale

A quiet life does not mean a small life. It often means one oriented toward depth rather than scale: fewer connections, but more meaningful ones; less noise, but more resonance. In contrast to the cultural obsession with growth and expansion, Ovid’s vision values sufficiency.

There is something deeply humane about this. Western culture frequently confuses more with better, yet many people discover that wellbeing emerges from limits, not excess. Living quietly allows for attentiveness - to relationships, to place, to inner movement - that abundance of stimulation erodes.

Reclaiming the Ordinary

Finally, obscurity dignifies the ordinary. A culture obsessed with exceptionality tends to devalue everyday life, even though it is where most meaning actually unfolds. Ovid’s counsel invites us to recognise the richness of small, unremarkable moments: conversation, routine, solitude, rest.

In choosing quietness, we do not opt out of life; we opt into it more fully, on human terms rather than cultural ones.

A Quietly Good Life

Ovid’s idea endures because it speaks to a perennial tension: the pull between outer recognition and inner coherence. Within our culture, living obscurely and quietly can be a way of protecting the soul from overexposure, resisting exploitative norms, and cultivating a life that feels lived rather than displayed.

In a world that demands constant noise, choosing quiet is not retreat - it is discernment.

Thank you Lorna, for inspiring this reflection and for showing me how a life lived quietly is rich in depth.

For further reading:

1. Classic Reflections on Nature & Solitude

• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Annie Dillard

  A lyrical exploration of nature, silence, and deep observation. Dillard’s prose models a quiet, contemplative life rooted in paying close attention to the natural world, akin to Thoreau’s Walden in spirit.

2. Modern Meditations on Silence and Inner Stillness

• Aflame: Learning from Silence  - Pico Iyer (2025)

  Iyer reflects on retreating to a hermitage and the spiritual richness of quiet life, blending personal story with meditation on solitude.

3. Philosophical & Practical Guides to Simplicity

• The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism  - Kyle Chayka

  Explores modern minimalism’s appeal and pitfalls, helping readers rethink consumption and life rhythms.

• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals - Oliver Burkeman

  A philosophical take on our limited time and how slowing down can make our weeks more meaningful.

4. Slow Living, Minimalism & Mindful Habits

• In Praise of Slowness - Carl Honoré 

  A foundational look at why slowing down can make life richer.

• Slow: Simple Living for a Frantic World  - Brooke McAlary

  Practical and warm guidance on slowing life’s pace.

• How to Do Nothing - Jenny Odell

  A critical and inspiring argument for rejecting the productivity addiction and reclaiming focus, place, and creativity.

• The Little Book of Hygge - Meik Wiking 

  Explores coziness and intentional simplicity as emotional nourishment.

5. Fiction & Slice-of-Life Inspirations

Even novels can teach quiet living by immersing you in gentle rhythms and internal worlds rather than external drama:

• Hannah Coulter - Wendell Berry (quiet rural life, community and presence)

• The Summer Book - Tove Jansson (peaceful summers and simplicity)

• A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers (fictional encounter with simplicity and inner questions)

6. Other Interesting Picks (Roots & Culture)

If you want something that bridges quieter living with deeper cultural or philosophical roots:

• The Book of Tea  - Okakura Kakuzō

  An essay linking simple aesthetic life with deeper cultural meaning.

• The Need for Roots - Simone Weil

  Not about “quiet living” in the obvious sense, but a profound meditation on rootedness, meaning, and community - which many find grounding in an uprooted, fast world.

🌿 Tips for Choosing What to Read

• If you want philosophy, not advice: Try Iyer, Burkeman, or Weil.

• If you want spirituality and presence: Honoré, McAlary, Wiking, Sunim.

• If you want fiction with stillness: Berry or Jansson.

• If you want cultural lenses on simplicity: Kakuzō’s essay.