Audio-fication

It's a public holiday today, so I'm writing this from home. It has been a long weekend which I spent jogging and decluttering--two activities which I seem to have acquired a taste for.

I love to jog because like driving, it gives me a good opportunity to spend some quality time listening to my audiobook. I usually have two audiobook titles which I am listening to: one when I'm driving and the other when I'm jogging and exercising in the park. Nowadays there so much audio content out there that the problem is a shortage of listening time. I think people who don't listen to audiobooks are wasting away 50% of their time--time which could be spent learning so much.

The internet makes it so easy to learn anything. Learning is a pleasure in itself. I do not care if whatever I learn is useful for my work or whether it improves me as a person. Learning is like tasting good food. The mind craves for knowledge because it is its source of sustenance. Neurons simply want to forge connections and it needs new information to do that. When an insight occurs, you know, something in the brain has changed permanently. And that is a good feeling.

I have many pairs of bluetooth headsets. I keep one in the car--for my audiobook listening while driving; I have one in the office--for hooking up with the iMac, which I use, usually for listening to Youtube, while I'm doing more routine tasks. I have a light, sweat-proof pair which I put on while I am jogging. Generally, I do not like in-ear phones, as I do not like to be cut off from surrounding sounds. The bone-conduction ones are the best.

Given the amount of time that I spend listening to various audio content, I think my ears have replaced my eyes as my main input channel for knowledge and information. I also have bedtime audio-stories--usually, a chapter from an old audiobook I've listened to before. I usually fall asleep at the 10-minute mark--which is exactly the reason why I only use familiar audiobooks. I listen back to the parts I like and also get to refresh my knowledge on the subject.

A lot of people told me that they have problems listening to audiobooks because their minds tend to get distracted and then they lose track of what they are listening too. It ends up as background noise. That rarely happens to me, because I've developed a habit of relaxing into a listening mode when I'm driving, jogging or doing some monotonous task. The habit can be cultivated. I have years of practice as I've been listening to audiobooks for more than 20 years--beginning with the days of cassette tapes and Walkman.

Most audio content are already available free from the internet. And there's no easier--even lazier--way to do so than to listen to them. Imagine the entire wisdom of mankind, available for your edification. To live is to learn. Not doing so would be great sacrilege. so hark!