we collectively
decided that every conscious
moment be filled
Adapted from this paragraph in the article, ‘Do you mind listening to that with headphones?’ How one little phrase revolutionised my commute by Hannah Ewens in the Guardian where Ms. Ewens writes:
Now it’s not just younger people polluting our public spaces with Joe Rogan interviews and biohacking how-tos – it’s everyone.
I don’t think people even realise they are doing this.
Somewhere along the line this became normal – almost certainly during the pandemic, when we collectively decided that every conscious moment had to be filled with visual and audio content, before we were told to return to society.
Let’s just say we’ve struggled.
I believe this because when I’ve asked people to turn their devices down, they make one of two faces: either they look as if they are rousing from a century’s slumber or appear shocked at themselves, as if they don’t know how they got to this moment.
I don’t think people even realise they are doing this.
Quiet.
Real quiet.
I am coming off a bout of the Covid.
My ears were so plugged, I couldn’t hear a thing but the fact that my ears were plugged didn’t come to mind until later.
I was up late late at night, reading, trying to come up with the energy to get up and go to bed and it came to.
It was quiet.
So quiet.
Deathly quiet.
A quiet I haven’t experienced in years.
If not electronic devices, I am near enough to traffic that the steady hum is the down beat to my life.
Surrounded by noise.
I talk about the time when you could go outside in the summertime and someone had the Detroit Tigers and Ernie Harwell playing loud enough to hear/
I started thinking about that.
Back then there were only so many options.
Now the options for audio are limitless.
And somewhere along the line this became normal – almost certainly during the pandemic, when we collectively decided that every conscious moment had to be filled with visual and audio content, before we were told to return to society.
I am reminded of Alice Tyler and her book, Accidental Tourist.
We join our hero, Macon, on a plane trip to New York.
Ms. Tyler writes:
On the flight to New York, he sat next to a foreign-looking man with a mustache. Clamped to the man’s ears was a head¬ set for one of those miniature tape recorders. Perfect; no danger of conversation. Macon leaned back in his seat contentedly.
He accepted nothing from the beverage cart, but the man beside him took off his headset to order a Bloody Mary. A tinny, intricate, Middle Eastern melody came whispering out of the pink sponge earplugs. Macon stared down at the little machine and wondered if he should buy one. Not for the music, heaven knows — there was far too much noise in the world already — but for insulation. He could plug himself into it and no one would disturb him. He could play a blank tape: thirty full minutes of silence. Turn the tape over and play thirty minutes more.
No Haiku For You 