Thursday, September 17, 2015

Headphones

Headphones have become the great escape. This morning as I walked my dogs Roxanne and Louis we walked past this young man headed to the middle school bus stop. This young guy had on headphones and never even glanced in my direction. The morning sounds were all around us, chirping birds, leaves rustling and even a nice lady walking by with her puppies saying “Hello” and he heard none of it. He was in the zone and life was his oyster.

Full disclosure, when I run I wear headphones, but I only have one bud in my ear playing music to keep my feet going. The other ear is available to hear cars coming, birds chirping and for paranoia’s sake the random person chasing me (which thankfully has not happened). I still hear the birds and barking dogs, people saying hello and any other things I need to hear. The thing is everywhere you go now you see people in headphones. Even my husband who works from home will roam the house while he is “In a meeting” and until I look at him and realize he is “unavailable” I am yammering on in a conversation. Nice!

I am still in debate with myself as to whether this is a good thing or not. I’m wondering if this disconnection will make all of us less personable and unable to communicate. I’m sure that was a big debate when television burst on the scene many years ago. Change is always hard no matter what it is. I suppose instead of assuming the young man this morning was listening to music, maybe I should think about the chance he was actually listening to a book he downloaded. Maybe as I grow older I am just becoming a big fuddy duddy!

Reality is life is evolving so fast that keeping up is tough. Music alone has gone from records to eight track tapes to cassettes on to CD’s and now we download music to our phone. At this rate we may just get a chip implanted in our heads one day so we can answer calls and hear music without carrying this phone and portable photo album everywhere. Oh geez, did I just invent something? I sure hope not!

I guess for now I will worry about me and what I am doing and let the rest of the world ignore me as they listen to music, have meetings and ignore nature. Now if you will excuse me I need to put in my headphones so I can watch a show on Netflix.

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