Silence. I love the quiet, no sounds, no pings, no jumping alert icons, nothing but silence.
Have you ever clicked on a link sent to you by a friend only to have ear shattering noise blast out of your computer speakers? I have. And I expect it to happen at least once a day until I finally leave this mortal world and go into the silent abyss where I will float on cool waves and quiet clouds.
Noise invades our spaces, we can control it by turning off the television, the stereo, the phones, shutting the doors and windows, but the noise coming from our computers are at times needed, to alert us to emails, chats, urgent Yammer messages, whatever we need to be connected to the outside world. But when does it get to the point where you are trained like a drug sniffing dog to perk your ears up when you hear the low decibels of your computer's needs? I can hear a ping from across the house, even when the sound is set on low. My ears filter out sounds of cars and barking dogs, but a low ping can have me running to the laptop.
Silence. As much as I need to be connected there are times I just want to be sitting in the garden staring at a leafy plant. But if it wasn't for that ping, I would not be able to afford to sit and stare. So I have come to an agreement with noise, I let it invade my space as long as it agrees to leave me time to be tone deaf and mute.
Image: Ophelia Chong / Underwater
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I've made somewhat of the opposite decision, opting to mute my computer at the expense of efficiency. Sometimes, I'm unsure it's even worth it, as I am forced to repeated my seemingly paranoid glances at my computer more often than I'd prefer. But it does give me moments in which I do not feel so quite so dependent on machines. Trade-offs. They're difficult.
hi maxwell, i have tried to "move away from the machine", but it seems we are both tethered together for life. i have accepted it.:O) ophelia