Growing up in the Highlands, walking was something I was always doing to clear my head and organise the thoughts in my brain. I have always loved walking without any noise in my ears apart from those around me – birdsongs, rivers flowing, people chatting, my dog sniffling in the grass. I like to give myself room to experience what’s going on around me, whatever that may be.
I have now lived in Edinburgh for five years, and the dynamic surrounding walking has changed a lot for me. Like many residents of Edinburgh, my walks are now commutes. We are all trying to get from A to B as quickly as possible, which more often than not, means you don’t have time to take in your surroundings. Instead, we use this time to blast audio into our ears. Despite these cold, isolating personal bubbles becoming the norm, the problem doesn’t lie with the change in attitude towards walking, but instead a refusal to let the mind become idle. Whether through audiobooks, this week’s Top 40, podcasts or something else entirely, it seems that we as a society have started to become entirely consumed by audible media, and as a result, we are forgetting how to connect – both with ourselves and those around us.
All of the above are fairly singular, isolated activities that you would do on your own. As is listening to audible media through headphones or AirPods. It is therefore easy to understand how we are beginning to lose our sense of real life connection.
“It marks a rare experience where connection fought off isolation, my Airpods discarded quietly at the bottom of my bag”
Once however, I did experience something different. It was a hot and humid day in Glasgow, and I had just spent the last three hours on the stuffy, smelly bus from Fort William. I had spent the journey listening to music, gazing out the window, pretending to be the main character in a teen movie to fill my time. But as we neared Buchanan Bus Station, I noticed the 30-year-old woman in the seat opposite me fanning herself as she looked questionably at her phone. I could feel her side-eyeing me in the way you do when you want to start a conversation, so I braced myself and took out my Airpod.
“Excuse me – do you know how I would get to Queen Street station from the bus station?” she asked.
“Oh – you just walk down the hill and turn right essentially…” I said. She said thanks and so I started to reach back for my Airpod. But I could see the confusion clearly across her face as she scratched her brow. She was about to ask me a follow up question.
Saving further confusion, I simply said, “Look, I’m going that way too. Why don’t you just walk with me.”
Long story short, we walked to the station together. At first, the idea of walking with a stranger and making small talk for 15 minutes felt like a chore. It had been a long day, and the last thing I wanted to do was make conversation with someone. But, after we had spoken for the first few minutes and arrived at the hot and busy train station on that random summer afternoon, I found myself feeling surprisingly … refreshed.
We were both heading in the same direction (Edinburgh) and so spent the next 40 minutes in the cramped and rather muggy train cabin, talking our boredom away. We spoke in length about our careers and our dreams, even roping in the confused but intrigued man on the other side of the small, intimate table with us who too, removed his headphones to join in on our trend. Nothing happened from that day, I don’t even remember their names, but it is one I look back on with fond memories. It marks a rare experience where connection fought off isolation, my Airpods discarded quietly at the bottom of my bag.
You might be wondering why it is only now that we are experiencing such a disconnect from real life experiences. After all, music and audible media have been around for centuries. The answer doesn’t lie in what audio we listen to, but rather how we listen to it.
Think back to all the movies made before headphones were an everyday item. Before the Sony Walkman made headphones popular in 1979, their designated use was for things like Navy radio communication. Before this, people would play a song or the radio out loud and they would gather together to listen. Audio experiences were a communal event – something you did with others. It was a chance to share something, create a memory and experience sound together. Today, however, it is mostly used as a distraction technique, isolating us more than ever. Before that lady spoke to me on that horrible, sweaty bus, I was listening to music and had every intention of going back to it once she stopped quizzing me.
But by removing my headphones that day, I remembered that music is not a necessity for walking. That 15 minutes with a stranger was far more meaningful than listening to Spotify’s curated ‘pop pilates princess’ playlist. It reminded me that outside the personal bubble that I so often shrink back into, there is life to be shared and experienced. So, next time you forget your headphones- don’t panic! Invite the silence in, or invite a stranger to join you.
