Your Music, Nose, and Space Whales

For some reason I have never been capable of concentrating while listening to music. Tv is fine, unless something like breaking bad is on. Even radio is okay as working background, if just generally irritating - increasingly, depending on the volume. Someone else talking? If I k ow them, they'll need go shut up, or ill have to...leave the room. Anyone else - fine, blabber to your health. Unless, like, it's one of those, like super slutty sounding valley girl diva types, who would, like, drive a deaf man insane!

But anyway, why does that happen? Naturally, our senses bombard our brains with myriads of visual details and colours, smells, information about our physical comfort, continuing breathing and heartbeat, and so on. And oh, you're actually always looking at the tip of your nose, but choose not to notice it. Ain't that sum'. Try not noticing it now, that pink transparent looking knob just there at the bottom. And your breathing in, and out, don't notice that for a second now. And how often you need to blink - man, your eyes are dry today, aren't they! 

And swallow that saliva in your mouth, there's too much already. 

If you're actively trying to see your nose right now, make sure there's no one around, okay? Take care there.

So what does the brain not block out? Obviously the sensation of cotton against my feet is not crucial for my survival at this moment, but then why hearing music that I enjoy interferes entirely with my mind process? It is not threatening - in fact, it should be comforting to me, and should help propel my mind into a relaxed and playful trance like a child in a kitchen cupboard, figuring out how matches work.

Is my brain drawn to pleasure so much that it cannot help but halt all other CPU* processes and dedicate its energy to re-recognizing this particular set of sounds? 

What if I set my phone to play only instrumental, vocal-less versions of my whole playlist? Although that might just spiral down into a one-man karaoke night, or even worse if I'm in public: a quiet whisper-singing, combined with actively miming out the lyrics, whilst sitting in a Starbucks or something. Not that I go to Starbucks. What about just drum parts? Would it just be weird then? Maybe I'd discover a new hobby, sitting over a clean white sheet, pen in hand and looking into deep space, trying to figure out whether those kick-kick-snare syncopes are from the second verse of that song by that band?

Meanwhile this is being scribbled to the tune of the whining of the ancient mechanical space whales that is the London underground trains. Swayed side to side, my nose wrinkled by that breathy charcoal smell. Although this doesn't bother me at all. This, apparently, my brain is used to, this is fine.


*CPU - [according to Wikipedia because I don't have time for a proper dictionary search] - is a central processing unit, the hardware within a computer that carries out the instructions of a computer program. Pretty much the brain of your computer. Or not. I'm not a specialist.


[Picture source: http://imgur.com/gallery/oDhSy6s]