Thursday, March 13, 2008

Sound of a Feeling

The five senses of the human body enable it to recognize its surroundings. It develops a familiarization using them. It could be a sound, a scene, and so on. This capacity of sensing is something that we have right from birth. Over the period of the entire life time, we develop reactions to what we sense. These reactions may or may not change. And these reactions could be in the form of an external physical action or else, and internal thought, or in other cases a feeling.

It is over a period of time that a little child learns sounds. There’s a particular understanding of each word or audio that s/he hears. S/He learns words and meanings, and expression comes of them.

It is perhaps simple, at least, to a fairly good extent, to develop the understanding of words, sounds, visuals etc. In fact the sense organs often are reflexive. But there’s a different realization or sensing ability that can’t be defined in similar way.

I see, I hear, I smell, I taste and I touch. But what about what I Feel? Feelings are what give us another kind of sensitivity, or sensing capability. But this is very special. Its evolution and response, both, are complex. And, is also subjective to an individual.

Even so, our description of sensing abilities is generally confined to hearing or seeing or touching etc. So how would we be capable of sensing a feeling? Can we see it? Touch it? Or may be hear it? Or do we just feel a feeling?

We can certainly feel a feeling, but besides this, intuitively, I think, we can hear it too. If that be so, what would it sound like? What is the sound of a feeling? Something intrigued me about this feeling of sound, I mean the feeling of feeling the sound of a feeling.

I see a conglomerate of colours on a canvas, and I realize it is a painting, and I know it is music; I taste sugar and I know it is sweet. But how do I hear a feeling? What is my association with it that helps me hear it? When there is rain falling over trees, and wind moving the leaves; water drops fall from the tip of one leaf to another, and the fragile branches swirl in the wind; how do I take it? Is it just a sound? Perhaps not just that; it in fact defines a picture, a sound, and some association with someone or some instance, i.e. a memory. And there originates a feeling.

You hear a feeling, in your mind. But for hearing a feeling your mind should be capable of recognizing it. The difference between feeling a feeling and hearing a feeling is the ability of associating one’s past experience with the feeling. I know how it feels to miss home when I haven’t been there for a long time. But is would be an extreme example, because this could happen often. The mind may recognize the sounds of feelings that my not be felt as frequently, they would be like experiencing a déjà vu. Like looking at someone you have probably seen before, and you see again, it an almost similar situation, and immediately there comes a faint picture of such an experience you had earlier.

The difference between the sound of a feeling and any other sense is very distinct. First, you have the advantage of hearing the sound of the feeling privately. No one else can sense it the way you do. Second, you can’t use your ears for the sound of a feeling, the mind or the heart hears it. And third, it is easier to recognize a sound that you could hear from ears, but the sound of a feeling requires your memory, mind and heart. It is more complex. You re-live the situation in the memory everytime that you hear that feeling.

The feeling of being hugged by loved ones, the feeling of meeting an old friend, the feeling of helping a needy, the feeling of being betrayed by someone, the feeling of missing someone desperately; you feel more intensely when you hear them. The sound of these feelings hence, is, the syllable created by memory, recognized by the heart and internalized by the mind.

So can a feeling ever cause a sound? The answer to this, probably, is yes. The first time ever that you feel a feeling and then, if ever, you feel it again, there gets registered a syllable of that feeling in your brain. Over a period of time if that feeling is triggered over and over again, the memory can distinctly create the appropriate syllable as the mind understands it, and hence there would be a sound created of that feeling. The cause of the sound is the feeling, because the it was internalized after one experiences the feeling.

Could the experience or sense of a feeling be a sound? Absolutely, (provided you are not new to that feeling), the memory would instantly create the sound, and you would hear it!