A funny thing happened.
Weird funny, not you’re-going-to-be-laughing funny.
I went in to school to do some end-of-the-year stuff. Mostly light manual labor.
A limited number of people can be on campus at once and we’re all in our own rooms most of the time, so except for a few minutes on one of my campuses, I didn’t see or interact with anyone.
Headphones in, I listened to podcasts. When I got into a task that required just enough brain focus that I couldn’t listen and do the task at the same time, I switched over to music. Listened to music for the rest of the day.
Seven hours later, I was done my tasks for the day and ready to head home.
In normal times, driving is the primary time I listen to podcasts. That day, though? I just wanted quiet.
No music. No podcasts. Nice weather meant windows down which means noisy. And the freeway is in the midst of being redone. The asphalt is stripped. Ambient noise was even louder.
When I got home, I needed quiet, I got some, and it was fine.
It got me to thinking: do the people who leave TVs on all the time in the background get overstimulated by sound all the time?
It’s really rare for me to get overstimulated when I’m by myself for a long time. And I hadn’t considered that I might like just to work in quiet for some of the time.
If you are a background noise kind of person, do you get to a point where you need to turn it off? Inquiry minds want to know…
