Rec | NO HEADPHONES

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I saw a quote somewhere that read “Silence is the language of God,” and a couple of days later my AirPods finally stopped working. I interpreted this as divine intervention, and began experimenting with quiet in various scenarios and settings. I’m typically the type of person who has some sort of music/podcast/video/voice in their ears at all times, and frankly I believe it was stunting my ability to think freely and withstand discomfort. I was beginning to feel that I was almost cheapening the media I consumed by multitasking, and I am hoping to renew my imagination and sense of mindfulness/presence by developing a better relationship to Quiet. I am training myself to listen to the naturally occurring sounds of my own existence rather than drowning out the world all the time. So far so good.

@heavensimulator

Mar 16, 2025

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@evezarik

Could not relate more It also makes the times you do listen to/watch things so much better. I realised this habit of constantly consuming media was also taking some of its taste away Not to mention, that kind of overstimulation can ruin your patience overall There are so many thoughts that never occur, so much imagination that doesn’t get used So much that gets lost in us distracting ourselves And it’s SO important each of us ask why we do that in the first place Regardless of the love we have for these distractions (which started out of pure passion, but accidentally became part of our life habits too) there needs to be equal space for you next to all the noise

Apr 6, 2025

@mariamaria

This is making me giggle because I’ve been reading about God from the book God:An Anatomy and the author talks about how the reason for temples to be very silent is because God hates that humans are such noisy creatures 😆 so you describe it perfectly by saying that silence is God’s language

Mar 16, 2025

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substack on silence and scrolling

my headphones broke in october and i'd been too cheap/too lazy to buy new ones - until today when i popped into one of those phone repair shops today that have those big neon lights outside to let everyone know 'WE FIX PHONES!!!' so i listened to music whilst on the go for the first time since october and it was... kinda overstimulating ?! i like how much more i notice in silence; even if that means feeling uncomfortable when the wind hurts my ears and having to endure incessant howl of my mental to-do list and also the cars honking. even visually i am able to notice more subtleties when my sense of sound isn't being overpowered by music. anyway, this post is an oldie but i got rethinking about it today

@chloev

Jan 22, 2024

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leaving my headphones behind and facing the music

I’ve recently read a book about the concept of “soundwalking” and listening to the beauty of your surroundings exploring your city and neighborhood. I used to become pretty over stimulated by the sounds of the world and would used my headphones religiously to block any sounds of the outside world from getting in. But I started to wonder if the things I use to protect myself from the outside world also isolating me from experiencing it to its fullest potential. Maybe the sounds of construction and people talking and birds and busses aren’t just “sound pollution“ but a reverberation of society and life. An organic inprov performance just for me where I am right now in the world. it made me think that anything has the potential to be a work of art depending on your perspective. I’ve started walking with a tape recorder everywhere I go and I record the sounds around me as an auditory diary of sorts. it’s fun to listen back and be reminded of the sounds of the bowling alley or the cafe or the sound check at the punk show. Since this perspective shift I’ve become allot less over stimulated by the world and become more creative with my greatest resource: the world around me.

@voidpuppet

Jan 10, 2025

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Not wearing headphones

I have had an ear infection the last couple of days and I literally cannot wear headphones without considerable pain. the unintended benefit of this is that I’ve had to walk my dog without music blasting and it’s so nice. we have a cacophony of bird sounds in the late afternoon/evening here in Australia (magpies, cockatoos, lorikeets, plovers) and usually my music drowns this out, but having no headphones means I have to listen to the sounds and it’s low key beautiful. the sounds of nature are beautiful. noticing the birds is beautiful. life is richer than we realise if we choose to notice and listen to the sounds around us instead of insulating ourselves from them.

@theeyah

Jan 7, 2025

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