Sunday Sound Thought 50 – Being Mindful of the Present (…Sound)

As the year continues, many of these posts will be philosophical in nature. Some will be in contradiction to previous postings. These are not intended as truths or assertions, they’re merely thoughts…ideas. Think of this as stream of consciousness over a wide span…

This week is an extension of last week’s thought. It’s also partly inspired by a recent re-watch of In Pursuit of Silence, and it centers around the sounds we take for granted in our everyday lives.

Watching In Pursuit of Silence again made me think about the nature of “noise” and one of the ways it’s defined in the film, “All those sounds that are undesirable.” [I’m paraphrasing here…wording may not be verbatim.]

I’ve been thinking about that in the context last week’s idea concerning sounds that we hear and no one else does. A lot of those sounds probably fall into the category of noise. I know one of the personal examples I used last week certainly does (train through skylight), and I though a lot yesterday about the many sounds that I take for granted and rarely pay attention to. The doorbell for my apartment is a prime example, because it’s always immediately followed by my dog barking his head off. My attention is completely diverted from the sound of the bell as I try to get the damned mutt to calm down so I can actually address whatever it is that’s on the other side of the door. I so thoroughly take that sound for granted that when a friend asked if my place had a doorbell that I could record for him, I said, “No.” It wasn’t until about 3 weeks later when it went off again (and so did my dog) that I realized I actually DID have one. [He didn’t need the sound anymore at that point. Sorry, Ben.]

So those old adages, “Be mindful of the present,” and, “Live in the now,”… I need to remember to apply that to what I’m hearing every once in a while.