I had a comically bad day yesterday, like dropping things, almost lost my keys down the drain on the sidewalk, spilled soup at the store near a makeup section, almost tore my pants, got back from the store only to find out I was out of TP, etc.
It was more funny than anything else, like so much random trivial bad luck in one day is like something out of some 90s Tom Hanks comedy.
But there was one thing that actually annoyed me - on my way back from the store on my grocery trip, my phone suddenly went from a healthy 7% to 0% and died. I was stuck with no music for the remainder of the walk back.
Soooo I was forced to listen to the sound of well - nothing at all basically.
Just birds chirping, wind blowing, leaves rustling, all as I walked the same path I walk all the time and see the same things I’ve seen hundreds of times, just waiting to get home.
Don’t get me wrong I love where I live and everything, it’s a really cool city with good pedestrian infrastructure, I almost never even get close to a car and it’s not some smelly euro village either, but seeing the same things I’ve already seen and having no stimuli at all, it wasn’t that big a deal but it was unpleasant.
That got me thinking - I sometimes see folks not wearing earphones outside, and I’ve heard on more than one occasion from some acquaintances that they don’t listen to music outside, and I wonder - why’s that?
Why would you choose to do that?
And, what do y’all like, do, exactly? How do you deal with the monotony of your grocery trips or things like that when you don’t even have music on? Do you just never get bored of walking the same roads/neighborhoods w/e day after day?
I like the sound of what’s going on around me. I enjoy catching little snippets of random conversations, the birds singing, the exhaust notes of passing vehicles. I prefer to be aware of my surroundings instead of insulting myself from them. At home, I’m very literally in the woods, and occasionally feral hogs may cross my path, but they make a lot of noise. When I’m in town the variety of sounds is novel and entertaining to me.
I wear earbuds at work, or if I’m running my tractor or lawnmower. I do drive, but I don’t always have the radio playing in my car. Sometimes quiet is just nice.
Speed running hearing loss. Typically, people crank the audio levels to hear it over the equipment. Get some work-rated hearing protection muffs and wear the earbuds inside that.
However I’d argue that hearing protection combined with additional noise is a good way to lose situational awareness.
Decent buds are as good as earplugs where I work. I seldom crank the volume. If I’m on my tractor no one is around or I don’t use anything. It’s a quiet little 25 horse diesel so that’s not bad. I’m a musician and very protective of my ears, but thanks for the concern.