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?
To me that just sounds kinda nice
I agree. This is exactly why I don’t wear headphones a lot of the time. So I can listen to those exact noises.
Sometimes I hang out on the porch just to listen to the not very loud noises of nature. Very relaxing.
I agree about all of this, but I have a counterfactual example to post. I was going on a long hike in the woods once, and I found that it was extremely uncomfortable to be alone with my thoughts for such a long time. I tried focusing on the nature around me, but it was just uncomfortable. So I eventually caved and put on headphones and it really helped to listen to something else as I was walking through this beautiful spot.
So now I see headphones as situational. Sometimes they do help when you don’t have enough stimulus to distract you from your own thoughts. If your own thoughts are particularly annoying, but in general I do try to be in appreciation of the nature around me. The birds chirping, the leaves rustling, the people going about their lives, etc.
Extended time spent in nature is how I became comfortable with my thoughts. If I had nonstop music as a kid that may have never happened.
Yes, I still have some pretty awful thoughts but figured out how to either let them go or use them for villain themes in tabletop games.
Yeah sure I like it too, but not day after day damn near every day in the same place at roughly the same times.