What do we hear?

What do we hear?

Back in the days when they were the latest thing, a dear friend  (Irene R) gave me a Sony Walkman AM/FM radio.   I was thankful.

But I rarely used it indoors or out.  Those early Walkman's were clunky, heavy-ish, and difficult to keep in tune. The headphones were hard to keep in place.

That was in the dark ages.  Nowadays the I-'phones or Smart 'phones are small, sleek and stylish.  Headphones are a thing of the past having given way to comfortable "ear buds".

There is an unhealthy downside to this progress.  The use of highly efficient ear buds cuts the listener off from all manner of other sounds.  (I owe my thoughts to a lecture I heard a year or two ago).

For you see, when ear buds are used, the hearer has restricted her/his range of sound. 

He/she is cut off from sounds above (birds, airplanes, winds, thunder  etc); 

from sounds around - a car horn, a bird in a tree, the greetings from another person; 

from sounds below  - the rustling of leaves, the wind blowing through the trees and grass, the tramp of feet

He or she is living in  a world which is deaf to the joy and pain of  the Universe.

It is a one dimensional world in a multi-dimensional universe.