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Oh, reason not the need
Jan. 22nd, 2011 11:57 amIt's a funny thing. I can, I do work in pubs, in cafes, on trains. Those are ordered from most noisy to least, in a general sort of way; my pub of choice plays background music through the afternoon and turns it up in the evening as it fills with people. Cafes are more or less constant talk-and-clatter. Trains - well, I'll try for the Quiet Coach if there is one, but I'll deal if there's not. I can tune out background noise, more or less, is what I'm saying.
Except that the less there is, the harder I find to cope with it. Demonstrably, I do not need silence to work; but I will aim for it, and the closer I get, the more I resent what noise there is. In a regular train carriage, I barely notice people's phones; in the Quiet Coach, I hate them with an extreme hatred.
In the Lit & Phil, as we know, I have migrated slowly downwards - kinda like fishfood - to the Silence Room in the basement. There is no actual need for this: I have worked up top in the Committee Room where it tends to be quiet and empty, and at the long tables in the Sir James Knott Room where everybody works and nobody talks much, and at the oval table by the coffee hatch where people gather expressly to talk. It doesn't really matter, but I do just like the silence.
Except, of course, that it has to mean what I think it means - and sometimes it doesn't. The library closes at one today, so my time here is limited; and there's a group in the big room across the hall who must be rehearsing some kind of performance because half an hour ago they were screaming - literally - and now they're singing. Which I would be very happy to listen to in other circumstances, because I love being sung at; but I'm trying to work and this is the Silence Room and that door is not soundproofed, and aaargh.
Anywhere else, it would be fine. Upstairs, I could tune this amount of noise out and never think about it. Down here? No chance. I am almost entirely failing to work. Observe me, writing a post about it.
[Oh, in case you were wondering? Yes, this is why I don't post playlists for my books. I don't have playlists for my books. I have tried and tried and tried again to work with deliberate music, and I can't do it. Either it invades my headspace and distracts me from the words, or else I tune it out, in which case why bother playing it? So I don't. And of course am utterly baffled by people who can and do and have to write to music. I have no idea how that works in their heads, how music goes in at the same time as words are coming out...]
ETA: now they're clapping. Singing and clapping. Of course I don't really want to burst in there and massacre them all, not even with a silencer on my putative gun. Of course I don't. I am so calm and mellow, it's practically Zen. What would be the sound of one hand holding a Zen gun?
Except that the less there is, the harder I find to cope with it. Demonstrably, I do not need silence to work; but I will aim for it, and the closer I get, the more I resent what noise there is. In a regular train carriage, I barely notice people's phones; in the Quiet Coach, I hate them with an extreme hatred.
In the Lit & Phil, as we know, I have migrated slowly downwards - kinda like fishfood - to the Silence Room in the basement. There is no actual need for this: I have worked up top in the Committee Room where it tends to be quiet and empty, and at the long tables in the Sir James Knott Room where everybody works and nobody talks much, and at the oval table by the coffee hatch where people gather expressly to talk. It doesn't really matter, but I do just like the silence.
Except, of course, that it has to mean what I think it means - and sometimes it doesn't. The library closes at one today, so my time here is limited; and there's a group in the big room across the hall who must be rehearsing some kind of performance because half an hour ago they were screaming - literally - and now they're singing. Which I would be very happy to listen to in other circumstances, because I love being sung at; but I'm trying to work and this is the Silence Room and that door is not soundproofed, and aaargh.
Anywhere else, it would be fine. Upstairs, I could tune this amount of noise out and never think about it. Down here? No chance. I am almost entirely failing to work. Observe me, writing a post about it.
[Oh, in case you were wondering? Yes, this is why I don't post playlists for my books. I don't have playlists for my books. I have tried and tried and tried again to work with deliberate music, and I can't do it. Either it invades my headspace and distracts me from the words, or else I tune it out, in which case why bother playing it? So I don't. And of course am utterly baffled by people who can and do and have to write to music. I have no idea how that works in their heads, how music goes in at the same time as words are coming out...]
ETA: now they're clapping. Singing and clapping. Of course I don't really want to burst in there and massacre them all, not even with a silencer on my putative gun. Of course I don't. I am so calm and mellow, it's practically Zen. What would be the sound of one hand holding a Zen gun?