Noise, Democracy and Seclusion -- Why Consideration is Underrated
Updated: Feb 21
Balancing Hedonism with Respect in Dense Communities
It's inevitable that in densely populated areas, people with diverse personalities will be close neighbors. Extroverts will seek connection, while introverts and sensitive individuals may crave peace and quiet. In cities, some will be quick to be combined in its nightlife, while others find it a hindrance that disrupts their well-being.
What many often neglect or disregarded is the impact of noise, on those who don't share in its pleasure. Hedonistic noise – booming parties with their loud music gatherings – is, in essence, an auditory face-heel turn. In this case it's when something that's intended to do good, brings harm, especially when the one experiencing its harmful implications, becomes antagonistic against those who triggered the music or loud noise.
While it brings joy to some, it can inflict misery on others who are forced to endure it. Just because the law permits it during certain hours doesn't erase the ethical implications it can have on those it torments -- and on you, should the tormented have the guts to meddle with you. As such, both on the short and long term, making such noise is, at its core, prioritizing our own pleasure at the expense of the comfort and well-being of the few.
Especially those who suffer from misophonia.
The solution lies in seeking outlets for such activities in places with less potential for disruption. Nature, designated outdoor spaces, or even private venues are ideal alternatives to residential areas. By choosing to enjoy sound, where it's less likely to create dissonance, we can embrace our extroverted tendencies while not making too many enemies.
And why exactly would we want enemies while all we want to do is to either enjoy or make loud sounds? Of course we're allowed to make them at residential areas. But we of course are also allowed to make unnecessary rivalries by doing so. Some of the enemies we can make are unhinged or can become unhinged. Very few mentalities are truly untouchable.
Why make yourself the victim of suffering while you can find solutions that won't make you a victim of suffering? Years of hatred can be cut off from your life once you realize not cooperating in a collective environment can deter your own, personal environment, as nothing exists in a vacuum. Realizing this insight further can reveal to you that you can spare yourself further traumas from confrontations with your neighbors, once a compromise can be reached.
And yes, you can be mentally scarred by neighborly feuds. Yes, it can affect your medical condition. In other words, unnecessary conflicts with people can get you unnecessary medical problems in the long run.
But say that to the average human being and they won't understand what you're talking about because human beings don't exactly think that far. Those who can do so more, won't necessarily do it. Those too submissive to their confirmation bias, which arguably most of us are, won't even bother understanding their mental and medical impact on us, for a higher intellect is also defined by open-mindness, as that is one of the traits a highly intelligent person has.
And most people are not highly intelligent, as high intelligence means "higher intelligence than the average", and the average is the most common. Gather them up in dense residential areas, and the probability of you living with those who lack open-mindness, can easily be higher as the density rate would go.
And density rate is on the rise either way on a global scale. As there are and will be more and more people with average intelligence who may lack the ability to understand the long-term implications of neighbor feuds, it's logically possible to determine a general rise in mental health issues as well.
Reflections from a Life Marked by Noise
For those, like myself, with heightened sensitivity to noise, collective spaces become personal, lonely battlegrounds for peace.
The irony of this soundscape, which is only horrible to me and few others, is its cruel alignment with a common definition of evil: inflicting distress upon others, for one's own pleasure. I care not having my ears r**** by your words. If you **** my ears, I can **** your mentality for I am dead inside and have little regard for norms that have little regard for my mental health.
As such, when the social contract is cut by half by a society that refuses to even to try understanding my auditory pain, I can as easily cut the other half of the contract that's left. Just like in other situations.
And it's not my problem that some people might lack the intellect to understand this. Indeed, intellect is a mental capacity, most optimized for understanding the world around us.
Loud music, the celebratory period for some, becomes an oppressive regume for those who prefer not having their ears assaulted. In a world with little tolerance for such sensitivities, we are left with an agonizing choice: endure this relentless, unforgiving attack on our mentality, or seek refuge in hermitage. You can't beat them. You can't join them when cases such as misophonia can't be cured.
And others can't be fully humane if they don't bother expending their knowledge on other humans and how neurodiversity effects them and their environment. Others have the options to further study on humanity, but simply don't do so. It really seems that people in general don't want to learn.
If noise hadn't been my lifelong nemesis, I wouldn't need to traverse an entire country, hours separated by a drive, just to find comfort in greater physical isolation. I wouldn't be skin-depraved in a region where my only physical company is a family member next door, while the warmth of a larger family remains virtual, as well of the very few friends I have left.
And it's all because of the unfortunate tendency of some to celebrate, mourn, and express even their anger through decibels that shatter my mind. It's because of the indifference of those who, within the bounds of the law, couldn't care less about the distress they cause. Because the law allows them to do that, the law disregards me. Thus, the very law cut off its social contract with me. But I refuse to be an outlaw. I do refuse cooperating with the law's social enforcers: The norms.
I am aware of the pain misophonia made me feel, I refuse making noise myself as occasionally. Because the virtuous part of pain is when it helps you prevent that pain in another's.
Look how the law, intended to safeguard, can transform into a cruel call of "why should I care?" to those who can commit suicide. It serves as a reminder that even in a democratic world, the tyranny of the majority can leave minorities voiceless and unrepresented. It's because the majority won't necessarily bother to understand the minority when it is consumed by its own, void-caused selfishness.
Your suffering goes unheard unless you belong to a chorus loud enough to reduce the noise.
Becoming an Anti-Villainous Philosopher
And the only way to reclaim my serenity from the clutches of the careless and of those whose intelligence is average, is to become a force to be reckoned with. To become respected, ruthless and intimidating. A true anti-villain. Because even in democracies, there is no peace without struggle, and there is no power without struggle.
My sensitivity to audio is not a choice. But it is my choice to choose being alive despite of the torment included.
I will stand in the way of those who think it is wise to deprave me of my peace. They took away my mental health, and later on, the health of my lungs. They cut off the social contract by unwillingness to learn. I will cut off their peace from me until they learn. Such is how morality works: Those who deprave one of something valuable, deserve to be depraved of something themselves.
And I will do so, until it will be learned that it is not wise to stand in the way of a person too broken by society, to be willing to partake in it orthodoxically. For I refuse being a whiny victim. I will meddle with those who meddled with me, for that is the karmatic thing to do, in a world devoid of it cosmically.
People caused me to abandon my hometown. They caused me much grief because they are unwilling to learn. I have no reason to like people in general. But I will contribute to them for this is the moral thing to do, and therefore, working on Philosocom is my key to remain a moral being and not as evil as I can be. Because the lowest thing I can do, is to become like those who took my mental and medical health away from me.
Why pretend to belong where your needs fall on deaf ears? In a truly considerate society, my exodus wouldn't have been necessary. But I cannot educate those who don't want to hear. At the very least I won't become like them, by not abandoning my empire, and not living only for my own interests, without a greater context of readership and organized followership.
Unsurprisingly, those denied equal participation in society, due to lack of inclusion, would seek their purpose in solitude, away from the mainstream. It is our choice whether to stay there without influencing the world, or not giving up on humanity, just yet! Democracy is one that best seeks between all people involved! it can't always generate harmony, but it can at the very least try. Try not letting itself become a tyranny of the majority at the expense of those too unique to ever become a mainstream component.
Because when caring for "the people", it is referred to the consideration of all the people, and not just "the populace in general". Because when you seek to care for people generally in democracy, you shove aside those who are not a general part. That's not democratic, outside the voting ballot. That's tyrannical. And that tyranny is normalized under the pretense of a society with a democratic spirit. For there is no democracy without a true seeking for inclusion of all involved, in one way or another.
Democracy is great, but it is also flawed because it can't consider everyone all the time. The fallacy occurs when it doesn't even try, when considering everyone, is possible. Thus, the benefitted will seek togetherness, while the rest of us will seek either disconnection, separatism, or even hermitage, like I do.
And I have no reason to care for those who don't even bother to try caring for me. I have the willingness and guts to try and care, through my contributions. But as long as I will be deemed too insignificant to even deserve the effort, I'll see little reason to deem you significant yourself.
"The little reason" lies in the fact is that you can change your ways and redeem yourself morally from the depravity of social conventions, who dictate that it's okay to overlook the suicide of plenty, and not even report it on the media. They can do it in a responsible and professional way, to reduce the deaths of many, but don't do so.
They don't do so, because mutual caring is not a common feature in contemporary society. Until mutual concern will be normalized, I will retain my antagonistic attitude towards those who won't care if I die myself.
Much suffering can be solved if we bothered to understand each other more. Our collective moral redemption begins from this.
