In The Head

I got into a discussion with my buddy John... with whom I've worked since 1977... regarding needing a hearing aid (me and my buddies are getting up there and the topic comes up more often now). For most of us, the noise floor is up, and thus the problem is the signal-to-noise ratio, i.e., tinnitus, a "ringing in the ear."


The reason I use quotes there is that my other buddy Jim had a conjecture that tinnitus is not a hardware problem but too high a loop gain in the brain. I validated that three years ago when I took anti-depressants and my own tinnitus went away. My problem-solving statement to John is that, when the time comes, I will try pills again before I get a hearing aid. Buddy Phil thinks that the tinnitus did not go away... that I just went to la-la land and didn't care, but I disagree. I ran a hearing level test with my bedroom HEPA filter fan level as reference, and I could hear fine with the fan off, whereas now (and before the anti-depresants) it takes two fan levels to drown out the tinnitus.

This begs to ask: What else do we have overgained? Clearly, anxieties, fears and panic come to mind... and surely depression is just a product of exhaustion due to anxiety overgain... but what else?

Seems to me that a lot of life is in the software... it's in the head.

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, just a dam' good engineer.


- © 2010 by Willy