Noise is always around us. Whether you can hear it or not. Today’s wetting explores not only the audible kind, but also within a literary and visual context, and why these days I proactively choose to tune most of it out.
Before Hyperacusis and Tinnitus were both explained to me, I falsely presumed everyone could hear as much as me, and that everyone’s ears always had a sound bed of pervasive ringing.
I was young, so I didn’t know any different. The fact I knew when someone had switched on their Analogue TV (or was tuning through the white noise on their radio) from a completely different room was something I never initially questioned. Hearing a lot more frequencies that other children couldn’t, and being a lot more sensitive to other senses than others too. Something to do with Synapses?
In turn, when sensory overloads would occur, the world around me would almost be unbearable. With the additional frustrations of a communication breakdown with those that couldn’t or didn’t want to understand. This in turn made me prone to migraines.
Either through; growing up in general, hearing loss, in-built coping mechanisms, or all three, I can’t hear those kinds of frequencies anymore. I can still be sensitive to over-stimuli (such as a crowded public space), but it takes a lot more than it used to before a meltdown or shutdown takes a stranglehold over me. Usually, anxiety, stress and/or depression have to come in to play. Ironically using music regarded by others as noise to tune out theirs!
In spite of all this, I can still get overwhelmed. Not just by the overload of sights and sounds of outside, but from; E-Mail, phonecalls, texts, and other floods of information that I perceive to be “too much.” on the inside.
To analogise my head to a computer’s hard drive, there’s enough filled-up on it already. Granted, there’s leeway for a little more space, but too much and problems will emerge.
Case in point to the most data consuming of all places for me, Social Media.
It’s why I don’t have a Facebook anymore, and the Instagram and Twitter accounts I have are both private with friend and follow requests, primarily used for Film and Media-Related resources and networking. Trust me though, you’re really not missing out on much at all.
As a ‘90’s kid’, my rite of passage through the Social Media handles as a teenager went from; MSN Messenger – Myspace – Facebook – Twitter/Instagram. There were others in between whose names escape me, but the same, monotonous pattern emerged whilst navigating and negotiating them all.
They weren’t a true reflection of myself on the outside. As an adolescent, I was masking enough as it was, but to then project that falsehood online, well, guess how that turned out.
Though it is commonplace these days for most people to do this. To showcase your true selves online. “Grass is greener on the other side” and all that.
But that’s fine. “Each to their own.” As I ‘unmasked’ however, the true honesty that I would end up displaying over statuses had an almost identical effect. Not publicly mind you, just amongst friends, both fairweather and genuine.
Coupling and tripling this with; the negatively charged didact, and simply realising how much time I was wasting on musing over other people’s lives and attempting to “stay in touch”, I deactivated my Facebook account in 2020 (a year with its own driving factors!) and haven’t looked back since.
Yes, I do have WhatsApp, and am fully aware it falls under the Meta branch with Instagram. Data leaks and similar business (speaking of all thing tech) are concerns, but were over-rode by my other reasons leading to a unanimous decision to quit and remain more withheld and private, keeping in closer contact with family and close friends. I’m sure the Information Super-Highway has plenty of data and information about me on there anyway!
I am also aware that I could sit and ‘Doomscroll’ on both the Social Media Handles and also relapse into the addicting habits of before, but I don’t. It’s took me enough practice, self-restraint and will-power to adapt a “little but often” approach to such an intake of crater’s worths of information, and aspire for a quieter life. Wondering if certain news articles or ongoing developments in the world would have an instant personal and direct effect on me and those who I care about around me.
By all means, call me arrogant, selfish, or self-fulfilled, for not seeming to care enough. For not sharing links for good causes, or peddling my autism advocacy levels and staunch stance on disability and welfare rights on a higher pedestal and at a louder volume.
But that’s not for me. I find that all too stressful and anxiety-ridden, and commend anyone who can do all of this without falling to pieces.
Silent, but not compliant. Quietly working away in a hidden corner of shadows, channeling what I can offer through the medium of Scriptwriting and Filmmaking. Besides, there are far better advocates out there than me. I also wonder “What difference will my voice alone make?”, but I think that’s for another wetting.
A mouse that roars perhaps? Limiting such intake that dictates and throttles modern living hasn’t made me a out-of-touch outlier or extreme political dissident. Simply content. Not apathetic, just, controlling the noise. Tuning in and out whatever's and whenever’s necessary. Once more with the irony, how the minutiae that bothers me doesn’t seem to bother others, and vice versa.
Maybe Fatherhood has helped towards that? Complacency too, as I veer towards perhaps the healthiest I have physically been in my life in my early 30’s, in the most comfortable of setups and personal circumstances too. Something that's been far from easy to obtain.
Having had multiple sessions by many myself, it’s often recommended by Counsellors and Therapists to work out what ‘noise’ is bothering you the most and (with guidance) learning how to tune out of it. Mine just so happens to be primarily Social Media related.
It’s apparent that we don’t take such time to take care of ourselves and decompress before reaching out and talking to others, especially over the internet. When some become deeply embroiled in questionably meaningful arguments, or the pressures we stack on ourselves or have had stacked on to us by others become overwhelming, and we lash out in the heat of the moment with astronomical backlashes.
The exponential growth in technological advancement another contributing factor? Whatever solutions (if any) emerge, for me, learning how to control the volume of such noise of the day-to-day – like the volume control for my ‘noisy’ music collection – has personally helped me towards a more purposeful life and better well-being. Perhaps if such a feat wasn't easier said than done, the future wouldn't always appear uncertain.