White Noise and Gnarls Barkley Therapy
I've never listened that much to music. I've already talked about that here.
I think now I know why that is.
I am almost constantly thinking what I can best describe as "white noise thoughts". They often go in circles and rarely do anything productive. But I've grown used to them. They're especially useful as a near-inexhaustible source of entertainment when I have to wait for something. Other people observe their environment or make up elaborate backstories about the people around them to pass the time. I retreat into my head and could be thinking practically anything with no obvious connection to where I am or what I'm doing. The more I think about something, the more I want to keep thinking about it, as though I were just on the verge of some amazing breakthrough the last time that topic came to mind. Of course, I was on the verge of nothing of the kind, and I can't really remember what I thought about last time I thought about it. I've led a revolution in Magic Booster Draft theory a dozen times in my head, but it never stays with me, and I'm almost sure by now that there's never been anything there to begin with. It's just white noise.
When I have music on, the white noise stops. And that's a little scary and undesirable, because what feels to me like "thinking"--what feels to me like the source of all my powers and of my worth as a human--has been blocked. So I relegate music to situations so tedious that even my white noise generator gets bored and gives up. Mowing the lawn. Driving. Cleaning my room. I bought my iPod for work, so that I could do my coding in the middle of a war room with a half-dozen people arguing over metrics and slide templates. Predictable, rhythmic noise was easier to tune out than human conversation, I reasoned. And it worked like a charm.
Imagine my surprise when I found that the iPod boosted my productivity even in a dead silent room, because it kept me from silently distracting *myself*.
Right now, I am typing this with my iPod on. This is actually a first for me. I have a confession: all of my "current music" fields have been lies. I never write with music on. I can't "think" with music on, so it stands to reason that I can't write with music on.
But it turns out that's all backwards. I actually can't write with music *off*. Not at any reasonable pace, anyhow. The white noise thoughts try their hand at improving my prose, and while I've produced a lot of impressive stuff under their guidance, it's been at approximately the rate of glacial advance. A whole committee reviews every sentence I type before it ever makes it to even a first draft of what I'm writing.
But not this time. The committee is busy, as it always is, predicting the next riff and lyric of (currently) "re: Your Brains". So I'm actually thinking of nothing at all besides writing this post. And that means the post can finally make it out of my head as I think of it. I have nothing new and profound to say tonight. And lord knows I've "restarted" this blog at least twice before. But I have something to point to now that's not going to go away tomorrow when I wake up to a day with many new and interesting non-blogging things to do. I have a way to get a damn post written in fifteen minutes when formerly it would take me three hours.
And if it weren't for you, I'd be without a care/Setting sail to St. Elsewhere.
Thanks, Gnarls. And Liz Phair. And Jonathan Coulton and Bradley Nowell and Eddie Vedder and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Lily Allen and Brandon Flowers. I owe you one.
I think now I know why that is.
I am almost constantly thinking what I can best describe as "white noise thoughts". They often go in circles and rarely do anything productive. But I've grown used to them. They're especially useful as a near-inexhaustible source of entertainment when I have to wait for something. Other people observe their environment or make up elaborate backstories about the people around them to pass the time. I retreat into my head and could be thinking practically anything with no obvious connection to where I am or what I'm doing. The more I think about something, the more I want to keep thinking about it, as though I were just on the verge of some amazing breakthrough the last time that topic came to mind. Of course, I was on the verge of nothing of the kind, and I can't really remember what I thought about last time I thought about it. I've led a revolution in Magic Booster Draft theory a dozen times in my head, but it never stays with me, and I'm almost sure by now that there's never been anything there to begin with. It's just white noise.
When I have music on, the white noise stops. And that's a little scary and undesirable, because what feels to me like "thinking"--what feels to me like the source of all my powers and of my worth as a human--has been blocked. So I relegate music to situations so tedious that even my white noise generator gets bored and gives up. Mowing the lawn. Driving. Cleaning my room. I bought my iPod for work, so that I could do my coding in the middle of a war room with a half-dozen people arguing over metrics and slide templates. Predictable, rhythmic noise was easier to tune out than human conversation, I reasoned. And it worked like a charm.
Imagine my surprise when I found that the iPod boosted my productivity even in a dead silent room, because it kept me from silently distracting *myself*.
Right now, I am typing this with my iPod on. This is actually a first for me. I have a confession: all of my "current music" fields have been lies. I never write with music on. I can't "think" with music on, so it stands to reason that I can't write with music on.
But it turns out that's all backwards. I actually can't write with music *off*. Not at any reasonable pace, anyhow. The white noise thoughts try their hand at improving my prose, and while I've produced a lot of impressive stuff under their guidance, it's been at approximately the rate of glacial advance. A whole committee reviews every sentence I type before it ever makes it to even a first draft of what I'm writing.
But not this time. The committee is busy, as it always is, predicting the next riff and lyric of (currently) "re: Your Brains". So I'm actually thinking of nothing at all besides writing this post. And that means the post can finally make it out of my head as I think of it. I have nothing new and profound to say tonight. And lord knows I've "restarted" this blog at least twice before. But I have something to point to now that's not going to go away tomorrow when I wake up to a day with many new and interesting non-blogging things to do. I have a way to get a damn post written in fifteen minutes when formerly it would take me three hours.
And if it weren't for you, I'd be without a care/Setting sail to St. Elsewhere.
Thanks, Gnarls. And Liz Phair. And Jonathan Coulton and Bradley Nowell and Eddie Vedder and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Lily Allen and Brandon Flowers. I owe you one.