I had a comically bad day yesterday, like dropping things, almost lost my keys down the drain on the sidewalk, spilled soup at the store near a makeup section, almost tore my pants, got back from the store only to find out I was out of TP, etc.
It was more funny than anything else, like so much random trivial bad luck in one day is like something out of some 90s Tom Hanks comedy.
But there was one thing that actually annoyed me - on my way back from the store on my grocery trip, my phone suddenly went from a healthy 7% to 0% and died. I was stuck with no music for the remainder of the walk back.
Soooo I was forced to listen to the sound of well - nothing at all basically.
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.
Don’t get me wrong I love where I live and everything, it’s a really cool city with good pedestrian infrastructure, I almost never even get close to a car and it’s not some smelly euro village either, but seeing the same things I’ve already seen and having no stimuli at all, it wasn’t that big a deal but it was unpleasant.
That got me thinking - I sometimes see folks not wearing earphones outside, and I’ve heard on more than one occasion from some acquaintances that they don’t listen to music outside, and I wonder - why’s that?
Why would you choose to do that?
And, what do y’all like, do, exactly? How do you deal with the monotony of your grocery trips or things like that when you don’t even have music on? Do you just never get bored of walking the same roads/neighborhoods w/e day after day?
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.
Not my place to say, so please take my comment with a grain of salt:
IMO, If you are avoiding living in the present, it might be important to define the emotion behind why. It could be a sign that you need sorta big changes in your life.