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| Its hard to hear yourself think sometimes. Photo by James White. |
In the new world of constant information bombardment, not being unable to understand what people are saying is some sort of wonderful gift.
Currently I'm reading a book about re-energizing yourself and what that means for performance. Being able to shut out external sources of information, especially when they are trivial, is one of the ways that we can recharge our batteries. It gives us that little bit of extra time to organize our thoughts and find a little time for ourselves.
Something that my friend Daniel in Warsaw got me thinking about over a year ago finally clicked in my head today on the bus while I was reading a blog post by a journalist colleague from Estonia.
We are really totally bombarded by information to the point where we can't process it all anymore. I don't know if it was ever possible to process all information put in front of a human being, but surely it was easier before we all had four different electronic items we carried on our bodies and switched between at regular intervals.
What my friend Daniel rightly said back then in Warsaw is that he loves living there because he doesn't fall into the trap of listening to what people are talking about. In his native England he is of course able to listen to people talking on the bus or on their phone.
I noticed the same thing when I went home to Australia for three months over the summer earlier this year. You start listening to what people are saying because suddenly there is that extra source of information that you are able to process.
The trouble is that most of the time it is just rubbish. White noise almost. I don't want to listen to what people are saying on the bus, but the thing is that I understand them anyway. My brain automatically tunes in and I listen. Just another source of useless information. Just more noise to cloud my mind.
Add this to things like Facebook, Twitter, the phone, blogs, news, work, friends and you start to go insane. Its no wonder people can't function properly and don't sleep well.
Just another reason why its sometimes nice to live abroad...
I think that, after a while, you start to miss understanding what goes on around you. Is the lady in the bus sad or happy? I really can't tell even though she's expressing it.
ReplyDeleteThere's an article I like a lot called Cities and Ambition, by Paul Graham, where he talks about the message cities send and how that affects the people living there. One of the things he uses to describe different cities is the "quality of eavesdropping"; and, while sometimes is good to be able to tune off, I think it's necessary to know how well you fit in the place you live in.
The link to the article: http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html (disclaimer: it's a bit long)
P.S.: I enjoy your blog. Keep it up.
Actually thats a good point. Sometimes we do disconnect from others too much and we lose the feeling of community. Community and looking after one another is an important part of life.
ReplyDeleteWhile I regret that we do ignore one another in large cities a lot, I still think we have way too much information bombarding us on a daily basis. Its not that I mean I prioritize my life over others, but my brain has the imperative to deal with immediate problems and stimuli. When there are too many, the brain just pushes the concerns of a stranger off the list (unfortunately).