Adapting to Conditions

Words
406
Reading
2 min
Listen
Play
10M

People are built in a way where we tend to get used to things that happen frequently in our lives. And sometimes, no matter how bad that thing is, it will get to a stage where we no longer see it as a problem any more, especially when it's something you've been living with all your life.

As we all know, the electricity situation in some parts of my country is nothing to write home about. I said some part because there are certain parts of this country that get an uninterrupted power supply, but not everywhere.

Well, unfortunately, for most of my life I've lived in the part where there's always an issue with the electricity, and having to live in an environment like that meant living with generator sounds on all the time.

photo-1658260867231-535a1f7c98b9.jpeg
photo by Dima Solomin

And like I said, having lived with generator noise here and there all my life, I most times don't realize how noisy it is and how loud it has made us be until it's turned off.

Earlier today, I was outside talking with my friends when the power supply was restored. At first, we didn't know and kept on talking to each other with our normal voices that were audible enough for both of us to have a proper conversation. But the moment all the shops and houses around us all turned off their generators, we both had to immediately bring down our voices too because what we thought were normal volumes turned out to be us raising our voices a bit.

I wouldn't have realized that if the generators weren't turned off almost all at once, and that is because I've got so used to the noise, so used to bringing up my voice to a particular tempo. It's almost like trying to talk to someone standing right next to you in the club when the music is on, and also trying to talk to them using the same tone when the music is abruptly turned off.

And sincerely speaking, no one should have to live every day of their lives being subjected to such noise. But in a country like this where there are way bigger problems to face, no one really cares about something as little as this. Besides, you can't ask the people not to turn on their generators, as that will automatically mean you're asking them not to go about their business.