Due to ear inflammation (with eardrum screwed up), I am experiencing a strange and quite beautiful auditory revelation. Poetic, but not so pleasant. Every sound is strengthened to an unbearable level. I feel like the dying astronaut in 2001: A space odyssey, listening to myself breathing. Claustrophobia.
The claustrophobia of being aware of the unity of space and sound. Any sound is external and internal at the same time. When not in this state, sounds are usually something quite neutral. Of course, one pays attention to a bang or somebody shouting. But that is still quite unusual. At least, sounds have a quite unproblematic place in the sense that we can say things about what is happening, how close or far something is from us, based on hearing. When in this ear inflammatory state, all sounds are on an equal level, which fucks up the relation between space and sound. When walking on the sidewalk and a car is driving by, it feels like the car is inside my ear, like a fly or a mosquito, and not on the street.
Things I've been hearing today:
the buzz of the radiator
my own steps
the washing machine in the café (that was terrible)
my ear
blood pumping in my head
the air condition system
my computer
running water
people turning pages
I am happy to be a philosophy student, thinking causes no noise. In its purest form. Damn it, I outed myself as a Cartesian. The truth is rather the opposite: if we wouldn't talk, we wouldn't think.
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