For the past ten years, I have explored the world from a very specific angle: through my sense of hearing. Beyond the technical work of recording and creating sound effects libraries, this practice has forced me to deeply observe and attempt to understand the world at large. Looking at reality through a different lens than most humans has led me to a profound realization. I want to present a perspective on how we might heal what has been damaged, looking forward to a healthy paradigm that would make us happier, more aligned with ourselves and our environment, and ultimately more sustainable. I believe this is entirely possible using one simple, powerful tool that has been misused or forgotten for far too long.
The Fabricated World
Most people today live a life of pure utility. Even though we celebrate “freedom of thought,” most of our opinions and values are shaped by the civilization we live in; the so-called freedom of our mind is often merely a mirage. We have built complex systems upon systems, and in the process, we have, to a large extent, lost touch with what makes us human and what brings true value to our lives.
Many of our assumptions and the structures we navigate daily are constructed. They are inventions of the human mind, and thus, they are not as “real” as the Earth itself. A tree exists. A river exists. Sand, planets, and oxygen exist. But do country borders exist? What about governmental fees? Does money actually exist in nature? We place immense value on things that are, in the grand scheme, entirely artificial. Our Cartesian and monetary systems push us to apprehend the world through a truncated, parallel reality, operating under the illusion that everything in this world is owned by us.
When you understand that humans are just one species among millions on planet Earth, it is only sane to start wondering if our worldview is sound. This is especially true when all the warning signs are flashing red. Our planet is becoming unlivable: the majority of people breathe unhealthy air, 75% of wild animals have been exterminated, ecosystems are destroyed with impunity, and the divide between the wealthy and the poor widens daily. We are generating more plastic than the environment can digest, manufacturing more weapons than ever before, and marching steadily toward the boundaries of our planet’s endurance.
We are making these catastrophic decisions because we are no longer in balance with nature, and consequently, we are out of balance with ourselves. We have become less sensitive to the feedback loops of our environment. Are our current dreams and values just rubbish? A better question might be: are we living in reality?
Returning to Our Animal Roots
Let’s delve into the source, the true reality of what we are. Ultimately, we are animals, and we have forgotten this entirely too much. Being an animal is not pejorative; it is simply the essence of our existence.
Like our ancestors who lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers, we evolved to adapt to our environment. We are among the most physically enduring species on Earth. To navigate this environment successfully, we developed finely tuned senses: eyes for multidimensional sight, a nose to decode the chemical information in the air, skin to feel our surroundings, and taste buds to evaluate what we ingest.
And then, we have two ears. Positioned on opposite sides of our head, spaced further apart than our eyes and nose, they are the biological radar of our body. For millennia, our ears allowed us to monitor the world in 360 degrees, spotting danger, food, water, and shifting weather patterns. Our survival depended on our senses working together in a coordinated, fascinating feat of biology.
We were intimately connected to what bioacoustician Bernie Krause famously calls The Great Animal Orchestra. Krause’s pioneering research reveals that a healthy wild ecosystem is not a random roar of noise, but a highly organized musical score. Through what he calls the “acoustic niche hypothesis,” we understand that every insect, bird, and mammal evolves to occupy its own distinct acoustic bandwidth so its voice can be heard without competing with others. For thousands of years, our ancestors were deeply attuned to this biological symphony, the biophony. We survived because we knew how to listen to the score.
How We Drifted Apart
So, what happened? How did we become so disconnected from our roots?
- The Rise of Human Language: We developed a highly complex form of communication. By shaping sounds in our mouths, we forged complex ideas that could only be transmitted through our vocal cords and received by our ears. From that point in history, we hijacked the primary, natural function of our hearing. We started listening to other humans and to ourselves more than we listened to the environment. Human language became more important than the ambient sounds of survival. By communicating so much “human data,” we have become the noisiest species on the planet. Today, the average human is deeply uncomfortable with silence; we feel a constant need to speak and express ourselves.
- The Sedentary Shift: The agricultural revolution changed our habits. Because we could grow our own food in a backyard, we settled down and abandoned the nomadic life. We no longer needed to rely on our survival instincts to hunt and explore. Little by little, we began to lose our ability to monitor the horizon the way our ancestors did thousands of years ago.
- The Industrial Roar: With the industrial revolution, machine noise began to dominate the daily soundscape. We replaced the complex acoustic tapestry of birds and wind with the drone of engines. In Krause’s terms, our human-made mechanical noise, the anthrophony, began to aggressively mask the biophony. We reshaped the entire acoustic sphere for efficiency, doing very little to mitigate the staggering amount of noise produced. Indeed, noise pollution is one of the most pervasive forms of pollution today, yet almost no one cares because we have already lost our ability to listen. We simply filter out the noise so we can hear more human voices.
“At the dawn of human existence, only the sounds of nature filled the air. Our ears evolved to hear these often soft, information-rich ambiences long before the industrial revolution unleashed an epidemic of noise pollution that would ultimately drive quietudes to the brink of extinction.” This quote from acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton perfectly captures the tragedy. But I would argue that it is more than just quietude disappearing; the overall palette of the natural world is vanishing, and along with it, our true, unfiltered living essence. We have become utterly obsessed with separating ourselves from nature. I sometimes like to remind people that we are “animals” and that we are “part of nature,” and most of the time, I am met with wide eyes of astonishment. Most humans today simply do not know, or do not want to know, the truth.
Realigning Through Listening
How do we reconstruct ourselves to be true to the world and to ourselves before it is too late?
We need to put the language of the environment on the same scale as human language. We must start listening to the world again—not just hearing it, but organically and viscerally deciphering the information contained in the soundscapes that surround us. Consuming only human-produced sound pushes us further into an alternate reality that serves neither us nor the planet.
This process will not happen overnight; it must be cultivated and implemented little by little. When we remove ourselves from the center of the equation and become invisible observers of our surroundings, real change occurs. Here is why I believe listening is the key to realigning ourselves and helping humanity heal:
- Listening teaches us to be silent. Simply by actively engaging our hearing, we immediately resolve a massive portion of our noise issues. We live in a society that teaches us that the noisier we are, the more powerful we are. If we aren’t making noise with our mouths, our brains are generating a deafening internal monologue. The mind of the average person is now as noisy as the city around them. Being quiet is no longer valued, but the simple act of listening forces the ego to quiet down.
- Listening creates oneness. A deep listening session makes us aware of what is truly important. It realigns the body with our sensations. We are made of vibration as much as physical matter, and sound and vibration interact deeply with our nervous system and perception. Listening can calm the mind, improve focus, and help us reconnect with our sensations.
- Listening is a biological superpower. As composer R. Murray Schafer suggested, listening to one sound is like seeing a thousand images. Sound is visceral; it is the beat of life. Unlike our eyes, we do not have biological lids for our ears. Hearing is with us our entire lives, only stopping when life ends. Furthermore, our senses are deeply interconnected. Synesthesia proves that we can see images and colors while hearing a sound. We do not need capes or flying suits to be superhuman; life has already gifted us a superpower. We just need to use our ears the way they were designed.
- Listening resolves conflict. The ability to truly listen, rather than just wait for your turn to speak, is the most powerful way to resolve human conflicts and find solutions to our collective problems.
A world where people listen again would be more grounded, more balanced, and more aligned with our true selves. It would be a place where we clearly recognize the boundaries between the real and the fabricated. A world where our desires, dreams, and inspirations align with what the Earth can sustainably provide. A world where we truly understand one another. A world where the natural world finds its rightful place back at the heart of our existence, right where we belong. A world where the connection between our mind, our body, and our environment exists in harmony. A world where respect prevails, and where all other species, even the tiniest ones, are valued for their vital role in the biosphere. We need to bring listening back to the core of our everyday lives. We must listen not just to ourselves, the prefabricated human, but to the natural world, and in doing so, rediscover our natural selves.
How do we actually start doing this? How can an individual improve their ability to listen? This is a massive topic that I will explore in my next post. But for now, to begin this journey, a great place to start is with the listening exercises proposed by Felix Blume.
References & Further Exploration
- Bernie Krause – The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World’s Wild Places
- Gordon Hempton – One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Search for Natural Sound in a Noisy World
- R. Murray Schafer – The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World
- Felix Blume – Listening Exercises (Practical audio exercises to begin your practice)