So this is life...

Today I was sitting in Chem and I saw in the front row a girl.  I figured that this girl was deaf because she had a hearing aid and a lady with her that would type whatever the professor was saying onto a computer so the girl could read and follow along.  Next to this girl was another girl (I don’t think they knew each other) that was sitting there before class with her earphones on.  Everytime the earphone girl’s friend would try and say something to her, she’d have to take her ear bud out and ask her friend to repeat what she said.  

And then that got me thinking.  What that deaf girl wouldn’t give to be able to hear the sounds in the world around her, to be able to hear the hustle and bustle of a crowd of students complaining about having to wake up for an 8 a.m. Chem class, or her friend conversing with her, all the intonations and pitches and ups and downs in her voice as she gets excited over a story.  And here a whole multitude of us are, myself included, that take our gift of hearing for granted and block ourselves off from the rest of the world and its sounds by plugging our ears up and turning up our music to full blast.  When I do my homework, I have my earphones in my ears.  As I walk from the doors to campus or from class to class, I have my earphones in my ears.  Those 10 minutes I sit there waiting for class to begin, my earphones are in my ears.  Sometimes I even just have them in my ears and I won’t be listening to any music, they just block out noise.  When we don’t want to hear something we just put our headphones on and fill our ears with something we’d rather listen to.  The irony in it is that we are deliberately deafening ourselves so that eventually we won’t be able to hear the music we love or a bird chirping or the sound leaves make when they’re rustled by the wind.  And then we’d be almost like that deaf girl sitting in the front row in chem.  Except we had a chance and we lost it.  We took something for granted, and eventually may not be able to go back.  So on my way back from classes, I went completely earphone free.  And while I didn’t get to listen to my favorite songs for 10 minutes, I got an earful of my surroundings.  It was nothing special, just a bunch of people chattering, birds, the wind, cars.  But it was an earful of life.  

Music…I can listen to the songs on my iPod any time however many times I want.  But the world keeps changing.  One sound you hear today you may not hear again tomorrow.  Or ever.  Headphones shut us off.  They’re so private.  It’s like saying, “I don’t want you to hear what I’m listening to and I don’t wanna listen to you.”  So for the whole rest of the week, maybe even two weeks, I’ve resolved to go earphone free.  I’ve rolled them up and put them away in my drawer so I won’t use them.  Not when I walk to class, not while doing homework, not when I’m just bored.  My ears will be 100% open to all the sounds around me.  I guess it can be considered a hella late Lenten promise, but we’ll see how it works out.