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?
That’s, erm, life m8.
I’m sorry for you if that’s what life is to you, it’s no wonder mental health issues are common amongst folks these days, the dead eyes and blank stares drooling off into nothingness, eyes wide open, yet seeing nothing, “living in the moment”, yet feeling dead inside. I pity you, little man.
The world is there to be discovered, you just need agency to go and get it, everything is literally at your fingertips, arts, history, geography, literature, science, philosophy, film, games etc.
Music is one way to engage with the arts even while your other senses must be occupied with the chores on procurement of resources that our meat shells sadly require for the foreseeable future due to lack of advances in technology on that front.
But the good news is, It’s why we as a species invented entertainment at all.
Part of the world is the outside, without external stimulus of music or a screen.
I can consume all those things without music playing steadily in my ears, and I would venture to say I prefer to enjoy arts, history, geography, literature, science, philosophy, film, games etc. without steady noise being pumped into my skull. Sometimes I do it while conversing with another person or several people.
At other times, I can listen to music. But I don’t complain that life has lost its lustre because my phone can’t play my music!
If you find lustre in grocery trips, I’m sorry for you.