Noise!
I love peace and quiet. When I was at college in Ohio, I used to wander for hours in the forests, just being, just looking, just listening to natural sounds. I hate noise. I’m a sensitive guy. I’ve always been that way. From a very young age, our family was divided by this – by Dad and my sister made loud eating noises at the dinner table. My mom and I couldn’t stand it. Our complaints did no good- my sister thought we were crazy.
I just don’t understand it. Some people are way over the top. They open their mouths wide with every bite. You can see their food. You can hear them “mmmah,mmmah,mmmah,” – You know why it’s so annoying? I just can’t ignore it. I can’t help but stare. I don’t understand how you can end up like that. Who taught you that? How can you not be embarrassed by that? It’s disgusting. I can’t explain why- I don’t know why I hate it. But I feel like your mouth is right in my ear. Like you’re chewing inside my ear.
It’s the same with kids who slurp on the end of a drink that’s already empty- that empty drink sound. That sound means STOP! I made my wife stop eating crunchy foods. She loves that stuff. She even puts crunchy stuff in her ice cream. No hard candies, no chips, no pretzels. Unnh uh. I love her, but she’s got to stop.
It’s like the cell phone people- the ones who sit in a class or the movie theatre while the thing rings 5 times before going to voicemail. You look at them and they have no clue. They really have no clue. Or they’ll pick it up and start talking before they’ve left the room. And it’s creeping. It used to be people wouldn’t let a phone even ring during a meeting or class or movie. Then they’d let it ring but not say hello until they were through the door (though they didn’t wait til the door closed)- and now they’ll sit there during a movie and have a conversation with someone on the phone! Creeping selfishness! It’s getting worse.
Noise pollution is the most invasive kind. You can get a water filter, or have pure water delivered. You can buy an air filter or wear a mask or move to places without smog. You can even combat smells by putting some strong smelling oil under your nose. But noise goes through walls. Earplugs only work so much and deprive you of an irreplaceable sensory ability. Sometimes I’ve had to put earplugs in, put noise-cancelling headphones over them, then listen to music through them to tune it all out. Loud bass vibrates into your bones. It’s inescapable.
But just as inexplicably, sometimes I’m ok with the noise. Sometimes I think the kid slurping on the empty drink is cute. I never think the open mouthed chew is cute. But I can even get into someone else’s loud music- I can relate to the humanity and enjoyment and fun of making noise. But I can’t control the noise sensitivity.
I work from home mostly. That used to seem romantic- be your own boss, schedule your own time, no annoying coworkers, etc. One nice things about working in an office I forgot about was quiet. Most of the offices I’ve been in are calm. No big bass stereo acura’s driving past your window, no flocks of birds screaming from the nearby tree, no neighbor jack hammering his sidewalk or pounding away at a new addition. You can almost fall asleep in an office – no, I have fallen asleep in an office. Not at home during the day. For some reason, half the kids in the neighborhood don’t go to school, so it’s like a baseball training camp around here and I spend half my day throwing balls back over the fence to irresistibly cute kids, and the guy at the end of the cul-de-sac’s life mission is to perfect the mechanics of his mini scooter, the one he tests by driving back and forth in front of my house. My only comfort is in knowing how ridiculous a grown man looks on a one and a half foot tall scooter. If you call that comfort. Mostly I shake my head and feel baffled.
Oh, and birds- I’ve been at war with the birds for about three years. It started in Clairemont in the height of summer. Noise is always the worst in the summer- despite the relatively monolithic seasons of San Diego, it still gets hotter, the days longer, people more active and louder- it’s harder to sleep at night, even with air conditioning, and in Clairemont we only had fans. That means the windows have to be open, and that means that if a rogue tropical insomniac parrot who got lost while migrating because he’s retarded decides to roost in your neighborhood, you’re not going to sleep. Oh, it’s fascinating how many beautiful calls this parrot knows, and how randomly he can switch from one to another, and how loud he is even two blocks away- it’s so fascinating that I wanted to get a closer look at him- through the telescope of a sniper rifle! But I didn’t own a gun, not even a BB gun, and didn’t want to kill it, so I got cozy with some earplugs and covered my head with two pillows and finally got some sleep. But I did go out a few nights and throw rocks at the tree it was in. Eventually, mercifully, it moved on. I’ve used fans for white noise, but if the fan has a noticeable cycle, my brain finds it and can’t listen to anything else (imitate with voice)- and if two fans are going, they may cycle over one another (imitate with hands and voice)
(Oh it can’t be that bad - You don’t understand!) Now, at our current house in Santee, the avian terrorists are blue jays- the meanest birds- I know, I once saw a blue jay stalk, attack, and eat a smaller bird. They’re mean. They’re nasty. They’re evil. They even figured out that I didn’t like them. Not sure how- maybe it was the fact that I threw rocks at them all the time. Hmmm. But instead of moving on, they decided it was some kind of game. They came back and chirped some more, trying to get me to come outside. They knew I’d probably miss them with the rock- they thought it was funny. So I had to ignore them. Not give them the pleasure of controlling me. See what I have to deal with?
I looked into subsonic bird-repelling machines, but they were $300-500, and I wasn’t ready to spend that much on it. I bought a slingshot, but I couldn’t hit anything with it, and I didn’t practice. Even more frustrating. I don’t even hate all birds- birds in the wild make nice sounds. But birds who feel their territory is being violated make horrible sounds to try to get you to leave. Never mind the fact that they’re the ones who built their nest in my house! I’m the one who’s supposed to get out.
When we lived in Normal Heights (normal, yeah right)- we had a lot of idiot drivers going by with their loud bass thumping- totally inconsiderate. It could be the most amazing song a human being ever recorded – to YOU – but to me it’s just Da DA…… Da DA….. Try thinking an original thought with that going on. You have to be an idiot not to realize that everyone within three blocks can hear your bass signal- the bass sound wave has long wavelength and penetrates almost anything. So, either you’re brain dead, or you just don’t care about anyone but yourself- selfish, or stupid. Not much I could do about them. I considered buying a paintball gun and shooting their windshields, but I figured either they’d wreck the car and I’d have to pay, or they’d have a real gun, and I’d get shot. So, nothing I could do about it – I think when you call the police to complain about noise and they say they’ll send a cruiser to check it out, they prioritize it somewhere below getting catching up on their monthly paperwork. And unpredictable, too. Not only would they drive by whenever, but sometimes they’d pull up at a nearby house and sit there for 10 minutes. I had to go outside once and calmly request that they turn down their radio since I was working for a living about 50 feet away. “Oh, yeah, sorry,” he said. How can you live in your own world like that while surrounded by so many people? I don’t understand it, because like I said, I’m a sensitive guy.
Because I know how painful it is to be taken hostage by other people’s sounds, I do everything I can to avoid becoming the victimizer. No matter how into a song I am when I pull up to a stoplight, I turn my music down. In general, adjust the bass level to be as low as possible so that I can still hear it enough to enjoy it, but so I’m not spilling extra bass into the surroundings.
And I have an idea for an invention for cars- see, the exterior of my car will detect if the car next to me is playing their stereo too loud, and then it will respond accordingly. You know those noise-cancelling headphones? They hear what’s going on around, then emit a soundwave that’s the reverse of the surroundings, effectively canceling the signal and producing silence. My car will detect the sounds from your car, and broadcast the opposite signal to silence your stereo. Not only that, it will also punish you with the kind of music you hate. This is pretty easy to do. If you’re playing rap, we’ll play you country. If you’re playing country, we’ll send you some really loud classical music. Most classical music lovers don’t blast their music, but if they do, we’ll give them some rap. And if you blast any top 40 music, we’ll blast a lecture on organic chemistry.
I know, real peace comes from within, and if I were peaceful inside, I wouldn’t mind these sounds, I’d embrace them and identify with the humanity of them- I don’t really believe we can just become peaceful amidst all this noise pollution. I cannot become the change I want to see because I cannot become silent. In fact, I think I need to yell about all this noise! I think we’ve lost some of our humanity- buried under all this noise and distraction somewhere is a purity and ease, relaxation, tranquility- if you’ve ever gone on vacation long enough in a peaceful enough place to feel generally blissful, ok, at ease, not having worried thoughts, not angry, just content- you know what I mean. It’s like taking a long refreshing bath in silence. You have to wrap it around you and sleep in it. You have to relax into it.
I just don’t understand it. Some people are way over the top. They open their mouths wide with every bite. You can see their food. You can hear them “mmmah,mmmah,mmmah,” – You know why it’s so annoying? I just can’t ignore it. I can’t help but stare. I don’t understand how you can end up like that. Who taught you that? How can you not be embarrassed by that? It’s disgusting. I can’t explain why- I don’t know why I hate it. But I feel like your mouth is right in my ear. Like you’re chewing inside my ear.
It’s the same with kids who slurp on the end of a drink that’s already empty- that empty drink sound. That sound means STOP! I made my wife stop eating crunchy foods. She loves that stuff. She even puts crunchy stuff in her ice cream. No hard candies, no chips, no pretzels. Unnh uh. I love her, but she’s got to stop.
It’s like the cell phone people- the ones who sit in a class or the movie theatre while the thing rings 5 times before going to voicemail. You look at them and they have no clue. They really have no clue. Or they’ll pick it up and start talking before they’ve left the room. And it’s creeping. It used to be people wouldn’t let a phone even ring during a meeting or class or movie. Then they’d let it ring but not say hello until they were through the door (though they didn’t wait til the door closed)- and now they’ll sit there during a movie and have a conversation with someone on the phone! Creeping selfishness! It’s getting worse.
Noise pollution is the most invasive kind. You can get a water filter, or have pure water delivered. You can buy an air filter or wear a mask or move to places without smog. You can even combat smells by putting some strong smelling oil under your nose. But noise goes through walls. Earplugs only work so much and deprive you of an irreplaceable sensory ability. Sometimes I’ve had to put earplugs in, put noise-cancelling headphones over them, then listen to music through them to tune it all out. Loud bass vibrates into your bones. It’s inescapable.
But just as inexplicably, sometimes I’m ok with the noise. Sometimes I think the kid slurping on the empty drink is cute. I never think the open mouthed chew is cute. But I can even get into someone else’s loud music- I can relate to the humanity and enjoyment and fun of making noise. But I can’t control the noise sensitivity.
I work from home mostly. That used to seem romantic- be your own boss, schedule your own time, no annoying coworkers, etc. One nice things about working in an office I forgot about was quiet. Most of the offices I’ve been in are calm. No big bass stereo acura’s driving past your window, no flocks of birds screaming from the nearby tree, no neighbor jack hammering his sidewalk or pounding away at a new addition. You can almost fall asleep in an office – no, I have fallen asleep in an office. Not at home during the day. For some reason, half the kids in the neighborhood don’t go to school, so it’s like a baseball training camp around here and I spend half my day throwing balls back over the fence to irresistibly cute kids, and the guy at the end of the cul-de-sac’s life mission is to perfect the mechanics of his mini scooter, the one he tests by driving back and forth in front of my house. My only comfort is in knowing how ridiculous a grown man looks on a one and a half foot tall scooter. If you call that comfort. Mostly I shake my head and feel baffled.
Oh, and birds- I’ve been at war with the birds for about three years. It started in Clairemont in the height of summer. Noise is always the worst in the summer- despite the relatively monolithic seasons of San Diego, it still gets hotter, the days longer, people more active and louder- it’s harder to sleep at night, even with air conditioning, and in Clairemont we only had fans. That means the windows have to be open, and that means that if a rogue tropical insomniac parrot who got lost while migrating because he’s retarded decides to roost in your neighborhood, you’re not going to sleep. Oh, it’s fascinating how many beautiful calls this parrot knows, and how randomly he can switch from one to another, and how loud he is even two blocks away- it’s so fascinating that I wanted to get a closer look at him- through the telescope of a sniper rifle! But I didn’t own a gun, not even a BB gun, and didn’t want to kill it, so I got cozy with some earplugs and covered my head with two pillows and finally got some sleep. But I did go out a few nights and throw rocks at the tree it was in. Eventually, mercifully, it moved on. I’ve used fans for white noise, but if the fan has a noticeable cycle, my brain finds it and can’t listen to anything else (imitate with voice)- and if two fans are going, they may cycle over one another (imitate with hands and voice)
(Oh it can’t be that bad - You don’t understand!) Now, at our current house in Santee, the avian terrorists are blue jays- the meanest birds- I know, I once saw a blue jay stalk, attack, and eat a smaller bird. They’re mean. They’re nasty. They’re evil. They even figured out that I didn’t like them. Not sure how- maybe it was the fact that I threw rocks at them all the time. Hmmm. But instead of moving on, they decided it was some kind of game. They came back and chirped some more, trying to get me to come outside. They knew I’d probably miss them with the rock- they thought it was funny. So I had to ignore them. Not give them the pleasure of controlling me. See what I have to deal with?
I looked into subsonic bird-repelling machines, but they were $300-500, and I wasn’t ready to spend that much on it. I bought a slingshot, but I couldn’t hit anything with it, and I didn’t practice. Even more frustrating. I don’t even hate all birds- birds in the wild make nice sounds. But birds who feel their territory is being violated make horrible sounds to try to get you to leave. Never mind the fact that they’re the ones who built their nest in my house! I’m the one who’s supposed to get out.
When we lived in Normal Heights (normal, yeah right)- we had a lot of idiot drivers going by with their loud bass thumping- totally inconsiderate. It could be the most amazing song a human being ever recorded – to YOU – but to me it’s just Da DA…… Da DA….. Try thinking an original thought with that going on. You have to be an idiot not to realize that everyone within three blocks can hear your bass signal- the bass sound wave has long wavelength and penetrates almost anything. So, either you’re brain dead, or you just don’t care about anyone but yourself- selfish, or stupid. Not much I could do about them. I considered buying a paintball gun and shooting their windshields, but I figured either they’d wreck the car and I’d have to pay, or they’d have a real gun, and I’d get shot. So, nothing I could do about it – I think when you call the police to complain about noise and they say they’ll send a cruiser to check it out, they prioritize it somewhere below getting catching up on their monthly paperwork. And unpredictable, too. Not only would they drive by whenever, but sometimes they’d pull up at a nearby house and sit there for 10 minutes. I had to go outside once and calmly request that they turn down their radio since I was working for a living about 50 feet away. “Oh, yeah, sorry,” he said. How can you live in your own world like that while surrounded by so many people? I don’t understand it, because like I said, I’m a sensitive guy.
Because I know how painful it is to be taken hostage by other people’s sounds, I do everything I can to avoid becoming the victimizer. No matter how into a song I am when I pull up to a stoplight, I turn my music down. In general, adjust the bass level to be as low as possible so that I can still hear it enough to enjoy it, but so I’m not spilling extra bass into the surroundings.
And I have an idea for an invention for cars- see, the exterior of my car will detect if the car next to me is playing their stereo too loud, and then it will respond accordingly. You know those noise-cancelling headphones? They hear what’s going on around, then emit a soundwave that’s the reverse of the surroundings, effectively canceling the signal and producing silence. My car will detect the sounds from your car, and broadcast the opposite signal to silence your stereo. Not only that, it will also punish you with the kind of music you hate. This is pretty easy to do. If you’re playing rap, we’ll play you country. If you’re playing country, we’ll send you some really loud classical music. Most classical music lovers don’t blast their music, but if they do, we’ll give them some rap. And if you blast any top 40 music, we’ll blast a lecture on organic chemistry.
I know, real peace comes from within, and if I were peaceful inside, I wouldn’t mind these sounds, I’d embrace them and identify with the humanity of them- I don’t really believe we can just become peaceful amidst all this noise pollution. I cannot become the change I want to see because I cannot become silent. In fact, I think I need to yell about all this noise! I think we’ve lost some of our humanity- buried under all this noise and distraction somewhere is a purity and ease, relaxation, tranquility- if you’ve ever gone on vacation long enough in a peaceful enough place to feel generally blissful, ok, at ease, not having worried thoughts, not angry, just content- you know what I mean. It’s like taking a long refreshing bath in silence. You have to wrap it around you and sleep in it. You have to relax into it.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar