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Knight’s camp. He began observ<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> mushroom when its cap was no bigger than a watch face. It grew<br />
unhurriedly, wear<strong>in</strong>g a Santa’s hat of snow all w<strong>in</strong>ter, and eventually, after decades, expanded to <strong>the</strong> size of a<br />
d<strong>in</strong>ner plate, striated with black and gray bands.<br />
<strong>The</strong> mushroom meant someth<strong>in</strong>g to him; one of <strong>the</strong> few concerns Knight had after his arrest was that <strong>the</strong><br />
police officers who’d tromped through his camp had knocked it down. When he learned that <strong>the</strong> mushroom<br />
was still <strong>the</strong>re, he was pleased.<br />
Even <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> warm months, Knight rarely left his camp dur<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> daytime. <strong>The</strong> chief exception to this<br />
came at <strong>the</strong> tail end of each summer, as <strong>the</strong> cab<strong>in</strong> owners were depart<strong>in</strong>g and <strong>the</strong> mosquitoes died down,<br />
when Knight embarked on a brief hik<strong>in</strong>g season. <strong>The</strong>re were a couple of aes<strong>the</strong>tically pleas<strong>in</strong>g groves he<br />
liked to visit, natural Zen gardens, one with a ghostly scatter of white birches with <strong>the</strong>ir paperlike bark,<br />
ano<strong>the</strong>r with a breeze-triggered huddle of quak<strong>in</strong>g aspens. He passed some time at a few sandbanks along<br />
<strong>the</strong> shore of North Pond that felt to him like t<strong>in</strong>y beaches. “Sometimes I’d stay up late,” he said, “and listen<br />
to some crazy AM talk-radio show, and hike to a high clear<strong>in</strong>g before dawn and watch <strong>the</strong> ground fog collect<br />
<strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> valley.”<br />
Fall foliage is undeniably beautiful, as easy to like as chocolate, but Knight felt that <strong>the</strong> woods were at<br />
<strong>the</strong>ir loveliest when <strong>the</strong> leaves were f<strong>in</strong>ished. He liked <strong>the</strong> skeletal look of bare branches. “I’ve read too<br />
much Victorian literature—old books, used, <strong>the</strong> ones with bookplates <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong>m, and <strong>the</strong> plates always show<br />
bare-limbed trees, to convey a sense of loss or com<strong>in</strong>g horror.”<br />
He never celebrated his birthday, or Christmas, or any human holiday; he was usually unaware of <strong>the</strong><br />
exact date, unless he heard it on <strong>the</strong> radio. He periodically witnessed <strong>the</strong> nor<strong>the</strong>rn lights, flow<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> p<strong>in</strong>ks<br />
and greens like billow<strong>in</strong>g drapes hang<strong>in</strong>g from <strong>the</strong> sky, and if a lunar eclipse was mentioned on <strong>the</strong> news, he<br />
walked to an open meadow and watched it. He could sense, by <strong>the</strong> flow of darkness and day, when <strong>the</strong><br />
w<strong>in</strong>ter and summer solstices had arrived, as well as <strong>the</strong> autumnal and vernal equ<strong>in</strong>oxes, though he marked<br />
<strong>the</strong> occasions with no special festivity. “I didn’t s<strong>in</strong>g, I didn’t dance, I didn’t make sacrifices.”<br />
Knight had a particular fondness for <strong>the</strong> days around <strong>the</strong> Fourth of July. He did not watch fireworks but<br />
<strong>in</strong>stead enjoyed his own private show. “It was <strong>the</strong> peak of firefly season. I thought that was poetically<br />
appropriate. I suspect John Adams would approve. Wasn’t it he who recommended fireworks on <strong>the</strong> Fourth<br />
of July?”<br />
It seemed that Knight could immediately recall anyth<strong>in</strong>g he had ever read or seen, though he <strong>in</strong>sisted that<br />
he did not have a photographic memory. He just remembered it all. “Both Adams and Jefferson died on <strong>the</strong><br />
Fourth of July <strong>in</strong> 1826,” he added. He wondered if modern society, with its flood of <strong>in</strong>formation and<br />
tempest of noise, was only mak<strong>in</strong>g us dumber. “I was not overwhelmed with data,” he said. “I had a ra<strong>the</strong>r<br />
restricted diet, literally and figuratively.” <strong>The</strong> <strong>in</strong>ternet, wrote Nicholas Carr <strong>in</strong> <strong>The</strong> Shallows, his book<br />
about bra<strong>in</strong> science and screen time, steadily chips away at one’s “capacity for concentration and<br />
contemplation.”<br />
Accord<strong>in</strong>g to more than a dozen studies conducted around <strong>the</strong> world, Knight’s camp—an oasis of natural<br />
quiet—may have been <strong>the</strong> ideal sett<strong>in</strong>g to encourage maximal bra<strong>in</strong> function. <strong>The</strong>se studies, exam<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong><br />
difference between liv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> a calm place and exist<strong>in</strong>g amid commotion, all arrived at <strong>the</strong> same conclusion:<br />
noise and distraction are toxic.<br />
<strong>The</strong> chief problem with environmental noise one can’t control is that it’s impossible to ignore. <strong>The</strong> human<br />
body is designed to react to it. Sound waves vibrate a t<strong>in</strong>y cha<strong>in</strong> of bones—<strong>the</strong> hammer, anvil, and stirrup,<br />
<strong>the</strong> old-time hardware store of <strong>the</strong> middle ear—and <strong>the</strong>se physical vibrations are converted to electrical