Jammin to tunes

 

Access to podcasts for education and entertainment, delving into the niche worlds of experts and storytelling mediums so bizarre and outlandish that they could not have worked any other way. The ability to glimpse into these worlds while your hands and eyes toil away at other things. Your feet are walking down Washington towards Pershing but your mind is enthralled in a thirty part series about a small dystopian horror. 

 

The ability to cancel out distractions and focus, even when nothing is playing. 

 

Ignoring people who would walk up to you on the street. Keep your eyes down and ignore the clipboards. Maybe your mind can be changed on whatever it is they’re on about, but walking out of the library to lunch is not the time nor place for a structured conversation. 

 

Signaling to that man on the Greyhound who keeps trying to start telling you his life story. He keeps mentioning more and more of where he came from, how he overcame an addiction, how he says that the addiction was marijuana. He won’t stop talking and at a certain point you have to wonder if he knows what headphones even are. 

 

Audiobooks, you still have a free trial from that podcast you listen to.

 

A Small fidget toy when nobody’s looking. 

 

Taking your headphones out, signaling that the man can keep talking if he wants. Your phone died anyways and you’re stuck next to him for the next four hours anyways. What would be the point in making it more awkward. He goes on. He talks about his estranged son, the one he hasn’t seen in decades, the one he hasn’t talked to since 2004. He’s crying. You’re nodding. Nobody has invented the English word for “I wish you the best in recovery and, if willing, a reunion with your son.” He’s heading home again. He’s moving back in with his parents, now that he’s quit. He’s in his fifties and much taller than you. He offers to buy your coat. You decline. He gets off the bus before you. 

 

Surviving trips on a Greyhound bus. 

 

Recording a podcast with a friend, for the fun of it, and listening to the recording back. There’s a bunch of background noise you wouldn’t have noticed through speakers, and you can learn how to edit those out. 

 

Discovering new favorite music in public.

 

Being able to tap your feet and bop your head to a rhythm people around you can’t hear. They’ll judge you still, but slightly less. 

 

Watching movies on a flight.

 

Pretending you’re listening to something while another man on another Greyhound bus talks about his recent release from prison, and how he ‘has a plan’. He couldn’t sound more like a cartoon villain if he tried. You question why you take this bus. You wonder if you die here, and if this guy is going into Chicago to kill someone. You shouldn’t be listening in on him, but his conversation with some random stranger is loud and stupid and nobody seems to mind. You call the police when you get off the bus and vow to never take the bus again unless necessary.

 

Surviving the bus ride back again. 

 

What will it take to get them to stop talking to you, what signal do you have to send to get the conversation to stop. The headphones weren’t enough. Your body language closes off. You don’t want to hear about the woman on the plane’s problem. The drunken conversations in the late night Jimmy John’s. You’re in your own world of music and stories, videos and learning. You want to close them all out and move on. You haven’t known silence in so long and when there’s silence there are thoughts, thoughts you don’t like. Thoughts that need to be addressed but the music and podcasts drown them out. It drives them back but they don’t stop. They never stop pushing.

 

Taking them out and listening to the world again.