Background Noise

Not sleeping. Again. This is turning out to be a blog on periodic insomnia and the rantings of one who is afflicted by it. But that will be another story, for some other time (maybe when the lack of sleep, combined with school-induced stress, starts to kick in).

At almost four in the morning there is silence. I'm used to this kind of silence by now. When I'm not in the mood for music, the playlist of my dawn hours consists of the tapping of keys and the subtle clicks of a mouse. Everything else is background noise.

If I would be a kind of noise (and maybe I already am), being background noise would be the least of my options. Double jeopardy, that's what it is.

First off, it's noise. That means it's unpleasant, unwanted, and unwelcome. It's annoying and bothersome that people would rather live without it. They think they'd be better off without it.

If that isn't bad enough, background noise is the kind of noise that gets tuned out. The sounds that, after some time of annoyance, start to become almost unnoticeable. After being pissed off, people become immune to it, and they ignore it. At some point, it's like it doesn't exist.

And while noise doesn't have emotions, people do. And I know--I see, and I feel--how some people turn into background noise. Based on personal experience, it's not fun at all.

I don't mean to sound like a desperate attention seeker, but the part about being annoying is really fine with me. I still believe in what my high school freshman Literature teacher told me: Hate is not the opposite of love--indifference is. So for me the worst part is when you start to get tuned out. It's when people go from criticizing and throwing negative reactions at you, to acting like you don't exist. Just another hum in the background, just like the airconditioning system in a room.

But well, maybe that's how it really is. Sometimes we're just background noise to others whom we consider quite significant.

This post was inspired by Patricia Bustamante's Behind Discoloration, on the emanila poetry site.

Photo courtesy of Dan Zen and protected by a Creative Commons license.