I haven’t listened to much music this week. That is, I haven’t listened to much music outside of the near constant “beep, beep, beep” of trucks backing up, as the city tears up the streets in my neighborhood. I guess they are lowering the grade, but I have no idea why they are doing that. They are here very early and they leave after dark. It sounds like they are making a lot of progress, but then I look out the window and I just see bunches of them standing around and not much has changed since the last time I looked. That’s not to say that aren’t making any progress, just that the pace seems glacial. And all the beeping and crashing and sometimes the physical shaking is distracting.
At night there are trains. And there is always the freeway. I sometimes wish that I could stop hearing it. I know that would be worse, but sometimes I just want to sleep. But I can’t. Not with all the noise and activity going on out there. So I spend a lot of time just lying here thinking about the nature of all this sound.
Sound doesn’t really exist, does it? What we think of as sound is just the way our brains are wired to respond to compression waves. That’s a pretty useful thing for us to notice, because perceiving these little differences in air pressure probably saved us from the maws of quite a few lions. And as a bonus, since our brains were all based on the same blueprint we all perceive these pressure differences similarly–instead of say, some of us perceiving them as sound and some of us perceiving them as color–so we can exploit this sense for our own purposes. We make our own waves and then even impose an aesthetic them. We like some of them, but dislike others. Some of them inexplicably inspire a sense of foreboding in humans. Where does that come from?
The next logical step here is to wonder if there are other physical phenomena for which we don’t have receptors. What if we had well developed receptors tuned to the level of moisture in the air? Wouldn’t we also impose an aesthetic on that? It seems like we would then have a kind of television based on this sense which would let us all have a similarly artificially manipulated humidity experience. What a strange world that would be.
I sure wish I could sleep.
I think it’s also weird that there are plenty of sounds all around us that we can’t hear at all. No aesthetics there, just inaudible noise.
I used to live four streets from the freeway. When I first moved there it was in the winter, and so, without the AC drowning out the noise outside, the freeway was a huge distraction for quite some time. I sympathize with a noisy home. Plus, I have two kids. They are a tad noisy as well.
Can you sleep with earplugs? They’ve saved me many times. I keep forgetting to bring them camping, which is hands down the noisiest sleeping experience I’ve ever had.
Nature is loud as bees.
Living near freeway like living near ocean.
Skin good receptor of moisture. Justin live too long in Houston forget about perfect moisture level orgasm.
When I first moved to Alaska, I had a hard time sleeping because it was so quiet outside. All I heard were the inside noises in the house. The tell tale heart kind of noises. That shit drove me crazy.
I don’t want to think about any of you geezers moisturizing the air with your bitter man goo, please.
Can you sleep with earplugs?
I sometimes resort to earplugs, but after a few hours they make my ears hurt, so usually I have to take them out sometime in the middle of the night. And once I’m awake it’s really hard for me to go back to sleep.
Skin good receptor of moisture. Justin live too long in Houston forget about perfect moisture level orgasm.
I’m not sure what any of that means, Tonto.
When I first moved to Alaska, I had a hard time sleeping because it was so quiet outside.
This would be a better situation for me. When it’s too quiet, you can just turn on a radio or something.
When I go back to Reed Township, it’s really quiet, apart from the loud electrical hum of the electrical system (and the occasional snowmobile), which really bothers me, but which my folks apparently can’t hear at all. If you get away from that, there’s still the hum of one’s own nervous system. Oh, the humanity. Maybe I could record it and play it back 180 degrees out of phase and see what happens…
I’m not sure what any of that means, Tonto.
Translation: The skin detects moisture levels in the air very well but you are forgetting this because you live in a climate where the moisture level is uncomfortable.
Yes, the skin does detect moisture, but it’s not as refined a sensation as those others which we call senses. And that was just an example. You can substitute your favorite physical phenomenon which we don’t have a proper sense for.