The Sound of Silence
When I get stressed and need to step back from the world, I find a comfortable place to sit and just listen. I wait for the soft sounds of the wind blowing in the trees; the gentle chirps of the birds on a spring day; the soothing rush of water from a mountain stream and I try to relax and become one with my surroundings.
Unfortunately, what I get is a very loud HISS sound in my right ear which dominates everything else. The medical term for this malady is tinnitus. It’s defined as a buzzing or ringing in your ears. Mine however does not follow its medical definition; mine is a loud hissing sound. It only occurs in my right ear and is with me all of the time.
Can I still hear the wind blowing? Yes. The birds chirping? Yes. The waters rushing? Yes. But the hiss, which predominates my hearing, is far from relaxing. And as far as I know, doctors have not found a cure for tinnitus, so I have to live with it.
If I’m involved with something, I tend to ignore the hiss and do not hear it at all. But if it is quiet, like when I’m driving in a car, or sitting in my living room with the TV off, or trying to sleep, I have to listen to, what one could best describe as, perpetual white noise. Those of you that are old enough would remember it as trying to listen to an AM radio station and not quite positioning the tuning dial at the right spot and all you get is a static hiss.
This is why when I’m driving I always like to listen to talk radio or podcasts. My mind, having to focus on both the talking and driving, drowns the hiss out. I’ve tried sleeping with a pillow speaker under my pillow, connected to my iPad, that plays music for a period of time when I go to bed and try to fall asleep. The music is low enough that my wife can’t hear it, I can focus on the music, ignore the hiss, and usually fall asleep before the shutoff timer stops the music. It is sometimes difficult, as I turn my body from side to side before falling asleep, trying to maintain a head position over the speaker.
At least if I have to suffer with this sound, I wish others around me could hear it also. That way I wouldn’t have to sound like a raving lunatic. “I’m sorry all I’m hearing is a hiss, don’t you hear it? It could be a snake.”
That’s when people I don’t know start backing away from me. I guess tinnitus has some good uses. Oh, how I long for the day (and night) when I can be free of this annoying sound.
My favorite response comes when I go to an audiologist to get my hearing tested. They put earphones on me and then tell me that they will put white noise into my ear as they talk to me through the headphones and ask me to repeat to them what they’ve said. I keep telling them there is no need to put any white noise in my ear, as it is there already, but they never listen to me. Maybe they have tinnitus.
For me, my end goal is to hear nothing but natural sounds and silence. Did you know that the word “listen” is an anagram of the word “silent”? In my case, it just doesn’t work that way. Listen can never include the word silent.
