Wouldn’t the ancients be amazed? Headphones on, music playing, being in the midst of humanity yet unattached, lost in an alternate aural reality but close to the din of modern life, free to think or not think, free to move but chained to a rhythm pumped through narrow wires and turned to a volume of choice: Ah! The ancients would be amazed, and, at first, probably a bit frightened. “What!” they would exclaim. “How can I be so removed from a place where I stand? Surely, this is wizardry. My eyes work, but my ears are now unconnected to my world. My thoughts are driven by music that just happens and that just overwhelms all other sounds.”
We make much of our connectedness to place. Home has a special meaning, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. The Forest, too, has meaning: In daytime we bathe in nature’s perfumes, sounds, colors, and textures, but at night we connect through fear of the unseen lurking creature. Or take urban life. The City is a chaotic movement tied to bits of order imposed by traffic lights, sidewalks, lanes for traffic, and “civilized behaviors like passing others without bumping, holding doors open, and waiting turns. We feel connected to each place until we put on the headphones.
There’s no complaint here. We are no longer early or pretech humans. We have invented sounds that we can turn to any decibel level we wish, even to dangerous levels. We have mastered natural sound and imposed artificial sound that disconnects us from place while we stand in its midst.
Why shouldn’t we be unconnected to place at times? We claim a nonphysical existence in mind and spirit. A mind, as the poets and psychologists have told us, is free to wander into places that could never exist in the world of senses. Or, as the great poet Milton has Satan say, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven….” Headphones serve as a vehicle for that temporary transformation and for wandering. Wrapped in headphones, we can be “placeless”—at least until the music stops.
Every place binds us loosely because of mind and spirit. Headphones provide an option. We are simultaneously bound and unbound. Headphones are our personal Ear of Dionysius, the cave that allows the quietest and most hidden sounds to be heard, a place where we can eavesdrop on others with whom we feel a connection, the distant Sirens that seemingly call only to us. Headphones, often called the bane of communication, serve the wearer a temporary way out of the meaningless din of seven billion others. Selfish? Yes. Self-centered? Not necessarily. Maybe we don them when we feel lost in a crowd of unknowns and pinned to a place. Maybe they provide a special communication between like minds separated by both time and space. Headphones can take us anywhere at any speed—until the music stops.
We make much of our connectedness to place. Home has a special meaning, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. The Forest, too, has meaning: In daytime we bathe in nature’s perfumes, sounds, colors, and textures, but at night we connect through fear of the unseen lurking creature. Or take urban life. The City is a chaotic movement tied to bits of order imposed by traffic lights, sidewalks, lanes for traffic, and “civilized behaviors like passing others without bumping, holding doors open, and waiting turns. We feel connected to each place until we put on the headphones.
There’s no complaint here. We are no longer early or pretech humans. We have invented sounds that we can turn to any decibel level we wish, even to dangerous levels. We have mastered natural sound and imposed artificial sound that disconnects us from place while we stand in its midst.
Why shouldn’t we be unconnected to place at times? We claim a nonphysical existence in mind and spirit. A mind, as the poets and psychologists have told us, is free to wander into places that could never exist in the world of senses. Or, as the great poet Milton has Satan say, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven….” Headphones serve as a vehicle for that temporary transformation and for wandering. Wrapped in headphones, we can be “placeless”—at least until the music stops.
Every place binds us loosely because of mind and spirit. Headphones provide an option. We are simultaneously bound and unbound. Headphones are our personal Ear of Dionysius, the cave that allows the quietest and most hidden sounds to be heard, a place where we can eavesdrop on others with whom we feel a connection, the distant Sirens that seemingly call only to us. Headphones, often called the bane of communication, serve the wearer a temporary way out of the meaningless din of seven billion others. Selfish? Yes. Self-centered? Not necessarily. Maybe we don them when we feel lost in a crowd of unknowns and pinned to a place. Maybe they provide a special communication between like minds separated by both time and space. Headphones can take us anywhere at any speed—until the music stops.
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