The much-esteemed and often-cranky philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer devotes a whole section of Volume 2 of his most famous work, The World as Will and Representation, to musings regarding the correlation between sensitivity to noise and intelligence. He claims that his neighbour's propensity to slam their doors rather than shutting them quietly is proof that they are stupid, and his fury over such auditory disturbances is proof that he is smart. This is Schopenhauer at his finest: pedantic, egocentric, and hilarious.
He is right however that some people just do not care about noises, and that these people tend to live next door to or above people who really do care about noises. As one of the latter, I have never confronted a neighbour about their noisiness, in person or otherwise. I have never even complained about them in a book of philosophy. But I do hear them. It's fine — it's my problem, not theirs. But I do hear them.
I try to cultivate a laid-back attitude toward our planet Earth and the things that surround me, but I can not help certain characteristics of mine, one of which is a sensitivity to noise. If a television is playing in my house that I am not watching, or music playing that I do not care to listen to, I can not help but feel a certain frustration. Like Schopenhauer, I become irritable, and begin to fall out of love with my fellow man. I can tell myself all day that this is an unkind and ungenerous response, but it is like telling a hungry person that dinner is only an hour away. Their stomach is still going to rumble.
To my great consternation, I am a sensitive and irritable man. As much as I would like for such things to flow past me like water off a duck's back, the relationship is more akin to lint getting caught in a lint trap. My mind falls in pits, gets caught in cycles, and sinks into quicksand. When something bothers me, it bothers all of me, forever.
This nature of mine makes me overly cautious when it comes to irritating others. When I myself am watching TV, and think that other people might hear it, I can not help but wince at all the annoying sounds that are coming out of its speaker. If I am listening to music out loud with other people, I hear it through the ears of a hater. I can only hear sounds, not music. Even if someone tells me explicitly that they do not mind, or that they enjoy the music or the sounds of the television, I can't help but feel that they are lying to me.
I won't even have a conversation in public, because every time I overhear a conversation in public I am awestruck by what comes out of people's mouths. In a crowd, I will whisper so softly that even a microphone held within inches of my lips would not detect a sound.
This is partly out of sensitivity; it is also partly out of a pride which is also shame. I know that every conversation one overhears in public sounds insipid and idiotic. I don't want strangers to think I'm an idiot just because of some off-hand comment they heard out of context. If they are going to think I am an idiot, I want it to be for a better reason. I want them to see the full extent of my idiocy. At least then they might be impressed, in a weird sort of way.
Although I hate speaking in public, I love public speaking. I relish standing up in front of a group of people who I know have to listen to what I am going to say. I get up there, shaking like a leaf, staring at cue cards that I can not read, and just start firing away. That is my time, when I am in control.
As the youngest and quietest among my siblings and cousins, I became used to being ignored, or talked over, or having my jokes repeated by someone louder several seconds later to riotous laughter. No one ever considered that I, the baby, would want to speak, and it was a struggle to get anyone to listen. Many breaths were wasted exclaiming, "Mom!" or "Dad!" to get their attention before starting any thought, even if they were stood right next to me and already listening.
I do not want to be overheard: I want to be heard! And yet, why should I have anyone's attention? As I have grown up, I have become increasingly reticent to impose my speech on anyone, for fear that they may just not be in the mood for hearing it. When I sat in the break room with my co-workers, in high spirits and looking to share it with someone, all I could think was, "What do I have to say that's worth making them listen?" Halfway through a thought, I become tongue-tied, overcome by the fear that what I am saying is boring or obvious or nonsensical. I become bewildered by the attention of the listener, feeling that at any moment it may slip, and I'll be left speaking to someone who, quite simply, does not care. Thus, I end most conversations regretting all that I forgot to say, and half of what I said in its place.
It's different when I write. The asynchronous nature of writing and reading means that the reader gets to choose when they want to listen. I don't have to impose my ideas on them whenever my whim dictates; I can throw it out into the world, and allow them to catch it when they please. I can engage fully in my part of the interaction, spending hours carefully composing what I wish to communicate, without fear of the right time slipping away. On the other side, rather than my words invading their earspace like a slamming door or a blaring television, the reader gets the satisfaction of choosing the right time and place.
I think much of irritability is a question of control. This is what separates the noises we make ourselves from the noises we overhear. The sound of a hammer striking a nail may evoke joy and power when you are the one swinging, but to the outside observer, it is merely an out-of-time metronome. When out and about, we are exposed to many noises and sensations that are out of our control. This can be frustrating.
When I need to use the bathroom in my own home, I just go. There's a bathroom right down the hall. When I am out and about, I don't often know where the nearest bathroom is. I don't know if it will require a key, or if there will be a line-up, or if the door won't work. This not knowing, this being at the whim of a world that does not belong to me, is scary. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate...hate leads to the dark side.
Schopenhauer succumbed to the dark side. Schopenhauer let the raging demon within him lash out in impassioned screeds and solitary fuming. He formulated a worldview in which living is pain, action is sin, and the only life worth living is one of total resignation and apathy.
It is funny in this way that those who seem most laid-back, or who espouse the most resignatory philosophies, are often the most compulsive worriers. I am reminded of David Foster Wallace, and how he didn't have a TV in his home. Now, I know all the memes about those without televisions, and it is easy to assume, especially considering he wrote a novel about a film so entertaining that any viewer would compulsively watch it on repeat until they starve to death, that he looked down on television and those who watched it. However, the opposite is the case. The reason he took the TV out of his home is that when it was there, he would watch it compulsively, and never get any writing done. The only way to avoid this was to banish the TV altogether. He was too weak to fight against its power over him. Thus, the novel is not a moralistic tale written from an ivory tower, but a personal story about addiction, written by an addict.
Living without a TV seems peaceful. Same with living without social media, or news bulletins, or traffic. And there are many people who don't engage with social media or the news simply because they do not care, and they're lucky people indeed. But for the most part, I think most people who quit social media or the internet or whatever, do so for the same reason that David Foster Wallace quit television. They quit because they can not maintain a healthy relationship; they can not let it go and come back later. It is either all the time or not at all.
My dad often says that I seem too laid-back, like I don't have a care in the world. The truth is that this is a cold-turkey response to incessant worry. When I worry, I became obsessed to the point of total inactivity. It is completely destructive to my well-being. I can not care without caring far too much. Thus, I have to choose very carefully what to care about, and what to try to control. This makes me at times seem irresponsible and flippant, and at other times sagely and wise.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about money. I wrote that I don't care about making a lot of money. This may seem freeing, but my relationship with money is not as simple as a lack of care. For years after moving out, I obsessed about money. Not about making money, but about not spending it. I would meticulously analyze every grocery bill, trying to cut out a potato chip here and a bag of oatmeal there, hoping to slim my grocery budget — and thereby my calorie intake — to the lowest humanly possible. There wasn't any particular reason for this. I could afford food. I could even afford treats, every once in a while.
I obsessed about money because I was afraid of losing control. The more luxuries I became accustomed to, the worse they would feel to lose. I was afraid that one day, something terrible would happen, and I would in fact be forced to live on beans, lentils, and vegetables. I needed to be ready. I needed to know that I could live on the bare minimum.
When I was still living with my parents, I downloaded a nutrition tracker. I was frighteningly skinny; I wanted to gain some weight. Over the course of a few weeks, my neurosis transformed; instead of gaining weight, I became obsessed with eating as few calories as possible. I felt that if I could train my body to survive on a limited diet, I would never have to worry about food again. So, I cut, and cut, here and there. I was hungry all the time. When I did treat myself to nice food, I didn't enjoy it, but instead felt guilt and shame. Every thought became centered around calories, macronutrients, vitamins.
The most amazing part of all this is that I did not try to learn anything meaningful about nutrition. I did not look into doctor-approved diets or food science or anything like that. I didn't go to alternative grocery stores or learn to cook new meals. I just ate less. I ate less so that the number on the app would be lower at the end of the day. I ate less even though I was losing weight I couldn't afford to lose, and I didn't have enough energy to get me through the day.
I don't live the way I do because I don't care. I live this way because I can't care without caring too much. My lifestyle is low-stress not because I'm relaxed, but because I am constantly on the edge, and the bare minimum of stress sends me flying over it.
Perhaps my problem is control. I have to make my own rules, my own schedule, and my own noises. I have to eradicate dependence, whether on other people, or substances, or luxuries. Dependence brings about contingency; contingency means that I don't know what's going to happen. Contingency means that things from outside can come in and change my life. I like to know what's going to happen. I would prefer, ideally, for nothing to ever happen at all.
There is much out there that I can not control. My upstairs neighbour struts around in high-heels, slams doors, and bangs pots and pans. Cars rush past on the street blasting music. People on the bus put their calls on speakerphone.
I can't do anything about all that. However, I can decide whether to lash out in anger like Schopenhauer, or to keep it to myself. I can decide whether to let my fear turn to anger, or to just let it go. I can not help being a sensitive and irritable man, and I can not help being a worrier. These are physical reactions, like getting hungry or needing the bathroom.
The world is not mine. My sphere of influence encompasses only my own mind. In the realm of my own thoughts, I can do whatever I like. It is only there that I am in complete control. Thankfully, all these noises, these external fears — they have to pass through there to get to me. And if I close my eyes and relax my mind — poof; they all go away.