10 September 2015

Too Loud, Man

(title taken from "Banana Boat (Day-O)", the Stan Freberg version of the Jamaican folk song that was released in 1957. It features a bongo-playing beatnik (Peter Leeds) who "don't dig loud noises". Neither do I. Check it out here. )

Modern life is just too loud. It's as if they've turned the volume way up, and then wrecked the controls...

I started thinking about this topic a while ago, debating on why I tend to use headphones while travelling to and from work. Here's the post. I've developed on a bit since then, realised that this is mostly my own particular aversion to noise. So, why am I so sensitive?

There are times when I simply can't stand the cacophony generated from an excessively noisy world. However, it's a little more complicated than that. Of course it is.

Because a good deal of the noise comes from inside my own head.

You see, my mind constantly hums with thoughts, ideas, and dreams. Some of these thoughts get processed in this blog, or get channelled into other writing. A small proportion is kept to myself - heck, I simply daren't share for fear of upsetting anybody... it's between myself and my Lord...

Add to that the background noise of everyday life, and that's why it can get to be overwhelming.

I can't hear myself think.

Perhaps that's why the peace and quiet of camping appeals to me so much... it reduces the input, allows me time to process and digest some of the things that I am thinking about.

It also explains why it takes me a while to drop off to sleep at night. If the hamster running around in my head never rests, neither do I.  I guess that's why my mind gets extra busy right before bedtime, preventing me from dropping off right away...

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