What I never imagined when I was young was the bliss gradual hearing loss could bring. It wasn’t so tragic as I thought. Sure, I’ve read the articles that say more people wearing headphones get hit by moving trains and so on, but that’s no worry. You see, I so rarely wear my headphones anymore that I never run that risk. The worst risk might be that I’m tempted to walk in front of a train because of the music I can hear bleeding from others headphones. Just kidding.
Let me take a step back. Let me clarify. Let me paint you a picture.
For as long as I can remember, listening to music — one of my favorite activities — has been a crowded affair. At least three things happens when I hear music, much less see live bands perform. When I listen to music, I am hearing the music itself, hearing the formal idea of that music (if it’s blues, I hear the predecessors of that type, be in Texas slide, Appalachian, Ozark, Chicago, or Mississippi Blues), and more often than not, hearing the songs I’d write if I were up on the stage playing that music (would I add a minor chord change, would I put a bridge there, would I end the chorus on a dissonance?) myself. It gets crowded in my head! It gets loud and chaotic.
Hearing music, especially live music, can resemble a walk through Bedlam.
Hearing people talk, be it in a meeting, a restaurant, a night club, or a metro platform can rattle and exhaust me more than Captain Beefheart’s more jagged compositions! All the syllables of speech rival a go-go band’s rhythm section for complexity and surround-sound coverage.
Hearing loss, then, offers mercy. Suddenly, competition for my powers of concentration thins out a bit and provide me respite from the keening mass of supplicants. Suddenly, with the din receding to a distant mumble, I can breathe. Like a sound-board whiz who reduces the shrill sharps and warms up those tinny flats, my hearing loss spares me the shrieking inmates of Bedlam.
Ah, deafness, thou art my angel of mercy.
