Tag: senses

#oneaday Day 369: What is going vrrrrrr

Something in my house has been going vrrrrrrrr… vrr vrr vrr vrrrrrrrr all day and it's driving me bonkers. I have no idea what it is. I thought I was hearing the vibration of my fan on my desk (upstairs) through the ceiling of the lounge (directly beneath it) but having turned said fan off and moved it, I don't think it's that.

Actually, it might be that. If it has been that all day, and all it took to stop it going vrrrrrr… vrr vrr vrr vrrrrrrrr was to move it an inch, I'm going to be… well, not annoyed as such, but mildly frustrated that I didn't just follow my first instinct and investigate further.

I've always had quite sharp hearing for stuff like this. It can be irritating at times, but back when I was younger my friends used to think I had magical powers for being able to tell a TV was turned on somewhere nearby (with its volume down, obviously, anyone can tell a TV with its volume up is on) just by hearing it. Of course, these days we recognise this as "CRT whine", and people are a bit more savvy to it. But it always used to make me feel just a little bit special when I could perceive something my peers apparently couldn't.

As age creeps up on us, our senses dull somewhat. My eyesight has certainly declined a lot from what it was when I was younger — I used to have absolutely excellent vision as a kid, but at some point around probably my mid-20s I started to feel like things weren't quite right in that department, so I went and got my eyes tested. Turned out I had astigmatism, a condition quite common in my family, so I got some glasses to fix it and it was a revelation. Now I'm never without them, largely because the idea of using contact lenses terrifies me.

My hearing seems to have remained good, however. Aside from an occasional condition known colloquially as "swimmer's ear", where my right ear sometimes finds itself getting "blocked" or "stuck", particularly if I've slept on it, I can still hear things very well, and my musical training means that I'm also very good at picking out individual sounds from amid a lot of noise — or, arguably more practically, being able to pick out individual instrumental lines from within a complete piece of music. Unfortunately this ability is also coupled with my autism, meaning that environments where there is a lot of noise — particularly a lot of people talking at the same time — can be very overwhelming. I find it particularly uncomfortable when someone talks to me while something else is making speech-like noises — in other words, don't talk to me while I'm watching TV, a movie or a video game cutscene.

I'm also quite sensitive to poor quality audio. Not so much that I'm an insufferable "FLAC or nothing" kind of music enthusiast, but when, for example, someone recording a YouTube video or appearing in a Teams meeting has a crappy microphone, I find it actively distracting to listen to them. I don't know what specific "thing" is to blame for that particular sensitivity, but with how affordable good microphones are these days, there isn't really a great excuse for sounding like shit, particularly when doing something where audio is integral — like narrating videos or streaming, for example.

Anyway, whatever was going vrrrrrrr… vrr vrr vrr vrrrrrrr appears to have stopped now, so I guess it was the fan vibrating against something. Occam's razor at work, I guess.

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#oneaday, Day 213: Intensity

There's an old saying, isn't there, that claims if you lose the use of one of your senses, the others become much more acute. Having never been blinded, deafened or whatever the equivalent words for losing your senses of taste, smell or touch are, I can't speak for the truth of this. Although I did have a nasty cold one time that stopped me from being able to smell very much, though a good curry sorted that right out, just in time for me to be able to smell the musty flatulence caused by the not-inconsiderable amount of spices therein.

But there is one sphere where pretty much anyone can get a taste of what this is like. The Internet. When you're talking to someone on the Internet, you might not be able to see or hear them. You're certainly not touching them, smelling them or tasting them, unless there's some exciting new Skype-compatible technology you're all using that I haven't heard of yet. But regardless, friendships and relationships form, grow, break, explode, spread, all the things that real relationships and friendships do, in fact.

Except for the fact that the lack of "something"—be it sight, sound, smell, touch or taste—makes everything that much more intense. For many people, cultivating a friendship in "real life" is a drawn-out process that takes some time of getting to know each other, getting a feel for one another, understanding what makes each other tick and so on. This process still happens between people who have met online, but at a vastly accelerated rate. The very nature of communication on the Internet means that responses can be considered more carefully and, assuming you're an honest person, made more honest than you might feel able to be if you're sitting in front of someone, their piercing eyes gazing into your soul.

Of course, the opposite's also true. It's much, much easier to be a bastard and a liar thanks to the wonder of the Internet. And, in many cases, without consequences. Some people find this fun. But the emotion and the hurt it can cause is just as real as the feelings of friendship, affection, even love that can also be felt in these relationships between people who have never seen each other, in some cases.

On the whole, though, the opportunity to meet and talk to people from all over the world is something which should never be taken for granted, whatever form it comes in. Whether it's posting on a message board, writing an email, using Twitter, checking out someone's avatar in Second Life, raiding with guildies in WoW; without the Internet, there's no way that a whole bunch of these people would be in our lives. Old friendships would be lost and forgotten. New friendships might never be made. Soulmates might never find each other. And you wouldn't be able to read the deranged, 1:30am ramblings of someone such as myself.

Some might say the world would be a better place for that. But, y'know, I kinda like it this way.