i just started wearing headphones and it clears out alot of my unwanted thoughts, like boring self narative. i can already feel it dancing. it even helps me talk and listen to other people. i suppose i have a.d.d. but chances are you do too. wear headphones. also its time to self actualize your c.d. collection.—get rid of all those crappy c.d.s., that are negative. a good way of spotting c.d.s. that are holding you back, is; look for c.d.s. with crappy or nasty cover art. you dont have to nesecarily love the cover art, but if it offends you, ditch that noise. you have to get your music collection down to the c.d.s you love. your c.ds. are a self portrait of you. if you took all the music you ever listened to throughout your entire life, and then played it back in ultra fast motion (in the same order, with the same time inbetween) , it would be a self composed symphony of your soul. you chose the tones, pitches, speed, and order. start making beats.
I have ADD, but I found relief through Amphetamine.
I love headphones! It’s like my version of Adreneline Rush on Demand!
Sadly, my parents won’t let me wear them while I’m driving. Perhaps they are right. So I purchased a Belkin TuneCast FM Transmitter so I can listen to my MP3-player over the car’s speakers.
However, in order to acheive the same “rush” that I get when I use the headphones, I have to turn the speakers waaaaaaay up. Please note I do not mean that I turn the Bass way up (I hate it when other people do that), though. Just the volume.
And that invokes the complaints from my sister. But I can’t please everybody, now can I? 
Besides, Phil Collins/Genesis never intended their music to be played quietly.
I never wear headphones. I enjoy listening to the “music” of nature and the city.
I actually believe that wearing them makes you addicted to a controlled environment and takes you out of the now.
Zen masters suggest that one practice “seeing” and I suggest “listening” to your actual surroundings.
I wear them to the store all the time, it’s wicked because then the people who always ask me for money don’t bother… figuring I can’t hear them anyways.
Wearing headphones always freaked me out because the music no longer had a source. It just seemed either ubiquitous in whatever environment I was in or like it was coming from inside my head.
I try not to wear them now.
I’m going to make a concerted effort to wear my headphones less. I have got into the habit of listening to the radio as I go to sleep…can’t be the gest thing for me…
going deaf…yeah that sounds about right. however you cant deny how much better music sounds. the headphones balance out the sounds, i listened to the velvet underground the other day, and i heard a whole bunch of lyrics that were undetectable to me be for. … walking threw a mall with headphones on is straight dope. evrything gets coreographed, clerks stop pushing, and just nod . also when outside i still hear horns and other natural sounds, except i hear them over a beat, vrs over my boring self narrative. i dare say i hear them doper.
Guys what about what I mentioned about enjoying natural sounds?
The Zen masters would always say the the sound of nature is the sound of all sound.
I commute daily and without headphones I cant say id be lost. I love music, but in variation. I like to go a while with out headphones and then a few months with them.
When im without them I think a lot, it gives me time to develop my ideas, when im not thinking I read, the news paper, comics, books etc. When I listen to music I like to be fully aware of it, to me background music is pointless. I only listen to music on my headphones when I have my full attention on it.
They can be handy for avoiding conversation or human contact of any kind. I keep them on without music sometimes as a security measure, it gives me an excuse not to bother making small talk.
When Im on the bus I play my music full volume, it pisses some people off… what do I care?
There’s nothing “natural” about the sounds of the city, IMO, nor are those sounds anything a Zen master ought to be prescribing for me. Still, you really ought not walk around in “condition white” in a city. For the sake of your personal safety and security, there are lots of times you have to be fully aware of your surroundings.
That said, I just personally don’t care for headphones. The sound is usually tipped up, and few 'phones provide really good bass. And even when the bass response is linear, you don’t feel it thru your body as you would if you were listening to real music in real space. That creates a weird disconnect with me. Also, the imaging is all messed up; unless you have true binaural recordings, or a special crossfeed circuit, the sound is “inside your head”, which I find disconcerting. Of course, that’s why many like the sound, even though that’s not the way we truly experience sound, from a psychoacoustics standpoint.
If I was buying 'phones, I’d probably go with Etymotic Research ER4-P’s, Shure E5 Dual Transducer Earphones, Sennheiser HD650’s or Grado SR-325’s.
The city is man made, and man is natural.
but “we built this city on rock and roll…”
then again, one can always go ask alice…
-Imp
I’ve heard that song so many times that I don’t need headphones to hear it.
-what im saying is that if you can find music that you can lock in on, or get into a meditative state, then its dope. then you loose all that boring self narraritive. personally if im walking im putting alot of what i see into words. if i look down and see a cup, i say to myself “cup” not always, but with alot of things. hearing my voice in my head dissconnects me from my environment. if i got the dope beats i look down and see only color and shapes. and i see the color over music, not over some sexy voice. im sexy but i dont want to have sex with myself. (constantly).
Hey GH where yah been hidin’.