The Sounds of Happiness
The Sounds of Happiness
Using Your Senses to Experience Greater Fulfillment
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As someone dedicated to the craft of expressing emotions, thoughts, and mental simulations in words there are times when it’s hard. Another sensory modality often dominates:
The feel of seaweed tangled around my leg.
The taste of fresh cantaloupe after a sweaty outdoor workout.
The smell of fear in an anxious child, confused about who to approach and avoid upon attending a party.
Without the interference of language, moments transpire differently. Music is the background of my existence (click here for a transcendent song you never heard of). I even wrote a book with a subgoal to meet and interview the lead singer of my favorite band, Fugazi. And yet, I often forget the value of attending to the natural sounds of everyday life.
A Scientific Study of Sonic Fulfillment
I am reminded of researchers uncovering the noise that happy and unhappy people experience in their natural environment. Scientists asked research participants to wear an ear piece capturing ambient noise for 30 seconds every 12.5 minutes over a week (leading to approximately 300 moments per person). While far from groundbreaking, people with the greatest well-being spent less time alone, more time talking to other people, more time talking about meaningful topics, and less time sifting through mundane shit. While it validates what many of us might expect about the lives of happy people, it is only a mere starting point to grapple with the sensory pleasures in moments. Which fits with my mantra that…
The building blocks of a fulfilling life are nothing more than the accumulation of pleasurable, meaningful, and rich moments. So don’t give them away…
A Personal Repository of Sonic Fulfillment
I spent a week cataloguing potent sounds experienced over a few days. Here is what penetrated my consciousness:
My youngest child turns 11 within hours of this writing. Listening to her take a large inhalation and exhalation on the pillow next to me, peacefully.
On July 4th, moments existed when the Montauk Beach stared silently such that I could hear the woosh of a firecracker propelling through the air before bursting.
Someone strolled out of the bakery, nervously rifling through pockets muttering, oh shit, oh shit until fingers fiddled with a set of keys.
The whirring engine of a hybrid car, knowing peak energy velocity and conservation has been reached.
Unleashing the latch of a dog crate, and listening to her step out, elongating creaky hind legs.
Being in flow at the keyboard, cranking out multiple sentences in a row with the cadence of fingers moving faster than thoughts.
Someone smelling the air after it rains, motivating others to do the same.
The reverse suction sound following the unclogging of a toilet.
Incessant sucking until finally dislodging a morsel of meat trapped between teeth.
Lying on a carpet following a long hike or drive, and moving hips side to side like windshield wipers until an air pocket cracks in your lower back (click here for details).
Kissing someone on the neck softly and noticing the suspension of air, caught in their throat.
CODA
Experiment with the simple habit of leading with your senses, not your intellect, to cherish life’s offerings. You might be surprised at how many moments expire from an absence of attentiveness to what you touch, smell, taste, and hear. For a day, turn off the music. Turn off the mental commentary. Listen to the surrounding orchestra with extra attention to what draws you in, what you want to extend, repeat, and retain. Who knows what therapeutic discoveries await. As for me, don’t be freaked out by my new appreciation of how much I glean about my social circle from alterations in their breathing patterns. I’ll be listening, deeply.
Leave a comment with your own unique sonic joys. If you enjoyed this, please use the link and share! Or click the heart button (always appreciated). Leave suggestions, constructive criticisms, and dare I say, a few positive words. Leave comments here or on LinkedIn or Instagram or Twitter.
Love the curiosity in ‘leading with your senses’. I was at the Proms last night. Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto was filling the venue. I’ve heard and performed it many times in the past, but seeing the orchestra and how different sections of the wind or brass or strings were picking up the ‘tune’ brought a new dimension to my habitual listening to this piece.