No Stupid Questions

Tell me, on the street after the second corner you turn on the way to the store, how many trees are there along the sidewalk? What kind of trees are they?

There's an interesting book called "On Looking" where the author walked around a city block with 11 experts in different fields and saw the world through their eyes. Here's an article about it: https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/08/12/on-looking-eleven-walks-with-expert-eyes/

The world is endlessly interesting, even in the mundane. Even if it's just keeping an eye out for new street art or thinking about a project or figuring out what I will do this weekend or just listening to my body and feeling the new aches or am old pain going away. There's often not a need for music for me.

Interestingly enough, I've been suspecting I am on some sort of spectrum, but I typically feel like you do. Like I need to be listening to something when going for a walk because walking itself is inherently a boring activity.

But there have been certain days where I feel entirely different. I'm less in my head and more out of it, soak in my environment more, pay more attention to my posture, the way I'm stepping with my feet, the sounds around me, etc. And it's not me forcing it either, I just feel genuinely more interested in that stuff.

I've been told I live in the future a lot, but on those days, I feel "normal". Like, I'm more interested in and living in the present, instead of daydreaming all the time.

Just birds chirping, wind blowing, leaves rustling, all as I walked the same path I walk all the time and see the same things I've seen hundreds of times, just waiting to get home.

This is what I prefer, and never wear headphones. Sometimes it's good to turn off the noise to hear my own signal.

I don't listen to things necessarily day to day. If I commute regularly on a train I may. I may be in my head or I may pay attention to the world. I do like trying to be present. When I walk my dog its about walking my dog so I let her go where she may, mostly, and watch her and wonder about what she is experiencing with her superior sense of smell and if she will notice that person and animal way over and be happy to see a friend. When running errands I think about what I need and where in the store I will go to retrieve it. I check the price per unit maybe doing a bit of math to determine the best value. While waiting in line may people watch a bit. Can think about something I read hear or saw on the news or how I will approach the next segment of a game im playing.

~~Live in the present!!~~ No
Just scroll aimlessly

As someone who loves music and listens to it every chance I get, I honestly never got into using headphones and walking. It just doesn't feel right to me. I am also very attentive to my surroundings, and if I feel like I don't know what's exactly going on, I really don't like that feeling. It may also be a generational thing? Im in my 40s, and the headphone market was a bit different 20 years ago when I was younger, and none of that really appealed to me. I never even had an iPod, I owned a zune lol.

I think there are different seasons of life and different moods for wanting to listen to the world around. When I got into backpacking it becomes a pretty conscience decision when deciding to listen to a podcast or some music or go for 5 hours of silence. Live your life and go with the flow. If your tunes die, find a way to make a life lesson in some way or fashion that makes sense to you. Our ancestors were stuck with nothing but themselves and local community so I guess connect with your primal self.

When I listen to music it's the only thing I can do, which makes me anxious about walking into traffic or off a cliff.

I have profound hearing loss, too.

Well, I have a pretty nice setup. iPhone and AirPods. Both Pro, for whatever that's worth. More marketing than function these days, though it used to mean something. I wouldn't use a base 16, but base 17 is the best of this year's lot. And AirPods 4 are good enough for anyone.

Anyway, I think sticking AirPods in your ears in public is kind of a rude gesture. It indicates "don't bother me." And I like strangers far less than normal people, neurotypical, whatever you call them. And I'm hard of hearing, so even if I'm not listening to music, I benefit from Apple's "hearing aid" mode (which I have set up). We also have this thing, it's buried in accessibility, called Live Listen. Superhuman hearing. Takes whatever the phone mic picks up and amplifies it. I stick the AirPods in my wife's ears, go into the bedroom and shut the door, place the iPhone on the bed, then go past the bedroom into the bathroom, and whisper a phrase, and she hears it, clear as day. It's that good. It's literally spy tech. "Leave" your iPhone hidden and completely out of sight in a room, leave the room, pop in AirPods, hear every word spoken in that room. (When you first set up the feature, it actually tells you not to do exactly that.)

So, yeah. I can hear way better with them on. But mostly I just do what I came to do and GTFO. I listen to the music in the car. Weird stuff like K-Pop (and not just the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack, though that's good too) or Enya.

I have a lot of stuff going on in my head that needs my full attention. Dinner planning, a work problem that I've been slowly chipping away at, toying with some random ideas, etc.

I understand that for some people, especially if you have ADHD, it can be easier to attend to those thoughts with music and other stimuli present. That is not the case for me.

I never leave my home without headphones, but often i do not even have music on, just using active noise cancelling to reduce the outside sound. For me it's all too loud and hectic, too many people talking and cars driving. So even as i do as you do, it has more to do with reducing stimulation than increasing it.

If there's nothing interesting to look at, I just continue the plot of the story I'm telling myself. Some people just enjoy a meditative silence, but I'm not one of them, either. I might look like it though.

Outside? I try not to go there.