Noise! is a well-known disadvantage of living with others (Big cities are only a heap of noisy people; stop blaming the city itself). It is annoying and also dangerous --Many scientific studies strongly recommend us to avoid hearing any sound louder than a hundred and thirty decibels, did you know that? We should keep this pain threshold in mind so as to prevent hurting our ears. We the people can be so loud that we have created laws against our own noise... There is nothing worse than waking up one morning because the building next to yours is being restored, and realising you will be hearing hammer blows for a week. Sometimes you cannot escape from it, traffic noise will fill your ears every time you open the window. Not to talk about some marvellous human inventions like petards, horns or drums. Human sounds can also be extremely irritating; have you ever tried to rest in a train trip while a mob of children is screaming next to you? Last night I was meditating about this issue on my way home --I had just come across with some labourers and their damned hydraulic hammers. Then I came into the apartment, went to the living room, took off my coat and saw him there, resting calmly on the sofa. He noticed my presence without looking, got up slowly, made his way to another dormitory and quietly locked the door. There were no words, like the night before. I stood alone in the empty room, while I stared, unseeing, the muted television, thinking. Scientific studies are made by heartless liars. Surrounded by silence, I realised that a hundred and thirty decibels are not the real threshold of pain.
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