It's a surrealistic experience to browse the National Library yesterday plugged into my earphones listening to Haas's 2nd string quartet (a recent gem of a discovery), as it is today, to a lesser extent, listening to music through my laptop in the NIE library. The silence of the external world and the enveloping aural haze sent my self into an aesthetic space detached from the surroundings, allowing me to contemplate what my eyes saw from a strange perspective.
Come to think of it, this reminds me of the scenes in 'Wings of Desire' where the angels contemplate the humans silently in the library, each absorbed in their own world. And I really wouldn't mind being deaf at these moment, with only my inner music to accompany my journeys. To see people move around me noiselessly with a detached sense of curiosity and amusement, and wonder why they can't see the meaninglessness of their frenzied activities and redundant chatter.
Many social commentaries have decried the ipod culture for turning people into self-absorbed beings walking around deaf to the world and allergic to human interactions. I see it as an act of necessity to escape the noisy demands of urban life. What do you think?
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1 comment:
Not everyone has nice music in their minds leh. Most people only have a critical voice inside their heads, ranting disapprovals at everything gone wrong... sad hor?
As for Ipod making people self-absorbed beings... hey, walkman started that many many years ago lor... Ipod just more high tech version of it. Haha
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