Headphones change your level of interaction with the world. It amazes me how some people walk through public with earbuds in: especially along busy streets or sidewalks. I could never do that, I find it too distracting.
I also can’t wear headphones while driving, a lesson I first learned at Avon Driving School but was later reinforced when the iPod came out and my car still just had a CD player. It is too all-consuming of an experience, but I have no problem piping the same program or song in through the radio.
It’s more about control than sensory experience. I have no misgivings about wearing headphones while using a lawn mower, weed whacker, or even chainsaw because that’s on my own property outside of the flow of traffic and disruption from other people.
I can handle being startled by a chipmunk much better than being startled by a mack truck.
It’s very easy to startle someone who’s wearing headphones; they’ve become the universal “do not disturb” sign – a prominent indicator that a person is consciously shutting themself off from the outside world.
The mere act of speaking to someone with earbuds in is this generation’s equivalent of calling a house phone after 11 PM, it must only be done in the event of an emergency and the entire household will come running to see what the fuss is about.
Headphones reflect how intensely personal and varied each of our realities are at any given moment, even when sharing the same common space.
Sit on a park bench on a beautiful day and watch the people going by: all of them have headphones in and all of them have different realities. It is impossible to tell the anxiety-riddled person listening to a self-help guru from the still-crushing-on-a-boy-band groupie, or the secretly-listening-to-death-metal businessman. We’re all living with our own customized soundtracks.
We each march to the beat of our own drummer, even if it’s just a digitally enhanced version of the same drummer that our parents listened to when they wanted to rebel from theirs.
Sounds heard through headphones almost resemble thoughts radiated directly into our consciousness. That may explain the popularity of confessional-style podcasts, which work much better when piped directly into the listener’s head. I’ve never stepped into an elevator and heard the faint background noise of Marc Maron blaming his mother for his trouble finding love. Every piece of content has its medium.
Headphones were best in childhood when using them included a touch of rebellion. I used mine to create my own alternative programming as soon as I got into the back of a family car. Silently saying either, “screw this sports radio nonsense, Dad, I’m listening to Weird Al,” or “Take your Peppermint Twist and shove it, Mom, I’m gonna Do the Bartman.”
I started with foam-padded walkman headphones that absorbed the stickiness of childhood and suffered heavily from a household full of animals and cigarette smoke. My discman followed suit with the same spongy material but stretched wider and thinner making them less obtrusive and less likely to absorb collateral dust and dirt.
In high school, I experimented with radio recording and bought a nice pair of large, leather-padded headphones. They lasted well into college and brought my “do not disturb” game to the angsty level that every teen deserves.
The earbud years were dark and seemed they would never end. Moving from the outer ear to inner ear was irritating; my sensitive ear canals still haven’t fully adjusted to the intrusion.
The surging popularity of personal speakerphones combined with a lack of self-awareness has completely caught me off guard. Every aisle at Walmart has at least two people blissfully interacting with their bedazzled phones on speaker.
Happily, my wireless headphones are untangling me from the mess. I’ve come full circle, back to the giant leather-padded type. This time with bluetooth cordless. I mostly wear them doing yard work, with just enough volume to hear over a lawn mower or weed whacker.
They’re battery powered so they get alarmingly hot at times and the bluetooth waves may be drastically increasing my risk of brain cancer, but the privacy is worth it.
Escaping from the world.
Thoughts and sounds encased as one telling the world, “Do Not Disturb.”
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