Splash No. 254 - Soundscapes
Soundscapes
In the morning, listening. The white noise hum of my box fan. The whirring is interrupted by a rattling. After years of nightly use, my trusty fan has started to shake itself apart, and its white noise is colored with newer, harsher sounds. The garbage truck’s crashing commotion in the morning isn’t drowned out like it used to be. I think about replacing the box fan. I think about upgrading the box fan. For as long as I can remember, I’ve needed some sort of fan to sleep, leading to the purchase of several box fans over the years. They used to be $20 at Target, but probably cost more now.
So every day has always started the same, with some alarm or another piercing the white noise, bringing in the new day. And other sounds follow—one of my roommates grinding beans for their morning coffee, or someone working out in the living room. I bring my own sounds, either music or a podcast or some video on my phone soon after I wake up. Usually, this soundtrack will accompany me through my daily routine, through the shower and onto the bus and to the office, only halting when I get to the office and start interacting with my coworkers. This is normal life for me, but lately, I’ve been starting to wonder if that’s the right path.
One of my favorite writers, Haley Nahman, wrote a piece questioning our obsession with soundtracking every moment, including some absolutely killer lines that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about:
I think we underestimate, in our unbridled infatuation with [music], the value of other sounds, and other types of presence. There’s a certain godliness to soundscapes that occur organically, and the meanings they convey.
Referencing a fascinating line from the book The Soundscape by Raymond Schafer, Nahman wrote,
It wasn’t until the Renaissance and the advent of the printing press that the eye was considered “the most important gatherer of information.” Up to then, hearing was more vital. “It was not until the Renaissance that God became portraiture,” he writes. “Previously he had been conceived as sound or vibration.”
There’s a spiritual bend to this thought process, which resonates with me as I once again am thinking about deepening my spiritual life. In some video or another talking about making it easier to meditate, a content creator talked about walking in the world without headphones as a means to get there—training the self to be without external digital stimulation. Even science seems to agree in some ways, as the latest research shows that hearing bird songs is associated with better mental health. As a noted park walk enjoyer, I can attest to how calming bird songs can be.
On the mornings that I don’t put anything on and I turn my fan off for the day, I hear the birds chirping on my roof. I look out the window and see the hummingbirds dipping their long beaks into the flowers of the tree. And it’s lovely. At the same time, it’s easy to forget that they exist at all if attention isn’t put towards hearing them, seeing them.
However, I wonder about how the non-bird sounds of living in a city affect a person—the incessant noise from cars and buses, the horrible screeching of the BART trains, the incoherent shouts of street preachers, the loud murmurs of many people talking. As much as we were meant to hear the birds singing, I doubt we were meant to deal with the sheer amount of noise pollution that’s inevitable in any urban area.
Or maybe this is me being too cynical about something that could be appreciated. Perhaps I can learn to appreciate the godliness in the loudness. There’s something divine humming in the engine of the bus that carries hundreds around the city, something deeply human and enchanting about the hum of noise that comes from our gathering. It’s the soundscape that scores my life just as the weather colors my days. All I have to do is listen.
Drops of the Week
PLAYLIST - may 23 - I don't really even know what's on here
ARTICLE - "Silicon Valley’s Civil War" by Nadia Asparouhova - interesting read about the ways different parts of the Silicon Valley Elite attempt to influence culture
POEM - "Despite My Efforts Even My Prayers Have Turned into Threats" by Kaveh Akbar - in my dream last night, I was trying to find this poem to recite it to someone, but I don't know who or why.
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Shhhhh,
Nikhil