Tuesday, December 05, 2006

noisy creatures

Humans are noisy creatures. It's not our vocal apparatus as such--bird voices are probably louder than human ones--but we make up for it using noisemakers. Where we live, we get the occasional car driving by with the stereo going full blast, sometimes with a subwoofer so loud it literally rattles our windows. There are, of course, the frequent leafblowers, and there's the guy down the street with a motorcycle that sets off car alarms. And just now, for the second time today, someone's horn jammed, blowing for fifteen minutes continuously until the owner did something about it. Part of it is natural from living in a densely populated area, but I can't help wondering how much of it's cultural, too: we seem to like to be loud.

I guess being loud is a luxury. Loud prey gets eaten. Loud predators scare off their prey and come home empty-handed from the hunt. So the only time you get to be loud is if you're a predator with so much food you don't need to hunt.

It sure makes it harder to study, though.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We are a predator with so much food and we don't need to hunt. Guess what is happening to us -- lack of exercise and obesity.

Anonymous said...

Hope your studying it going ok. We have a "drummer" on our street who practices every evening, and enjoys sharing his music. Yes, there are also days when I wish we could turn back the technological clock on some of the electronic multimedia developments, and I yearn for the good old "quiet" times.