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 Noise You Stop Hearing

By Shlomo Maital

    I am writing this blog, in my office at my university.  Next door, huge jack hammers are busy pounding the ground to prepare the foundations for a new Computer Science building.  Whump whump whump….the noise goes right through the ground to the floor of my office.  Whump whump whump.  And this has been going on for many months. 

     But – surprise!   At some point, unbelievably, I no longer hear the whump whump whump of the jack hammers!  Repetitive noise is often filtered out by our brains, who instruct us to simply ignore it. 

     This is not always the case.  And if you let the whump whump upset you, your brain will continue to register it, because …that seems to be the instruction it is given. 

      There is a life lesson here.  Telling our kids repeatedly not to do something … gets filtered out.  Telling others too often is ineffective.  A sound that is repeated without change is by definition noise. 

       We all of us create noise.  Do not be surprised, then, if it is filtered out and ignored. 

         Have an important message for family?  Friends?   Colleagues?    Repeating it won’t help much.  Find ways to repackage, rephrase, retell it.  Add a bit of humor – that often helps. 

         I am surprised that I can continue to work and write, while the jack hammers next door serenade me.  Get into something, deep – and I don’t hear them. 

        Best not to become a jack hammer – and wonder why your screechy noise is not being heard.