I’ll admit it: I love walking around Berkeley with my earphones in. Listening to music is a great way to romanticize college life. But sometimes I look around and see almost everyone has their earphones in or headphones on. It’s a bit unfortunate that all of us are missing out on the background soundtrack.
A few weeks ago, I was passing through campus with one earphone in. I heard music and cheering coming from Sproul Plaza, so I went over to take a look. A crowd of people was gathered around Savio Steps for a concert put on by ASUC Superb, one of our entertainment organizations. I searched up the performer on their Instagram: it was Grammy Award-winning R&B artist Durand Bernarr. I hung out for a bit to watch people dance and clap along. Although I didn’t know his songs, they sounded nice, so I searched them up to listen to. As I walked home, the Campanile bells were ringing for the usual 6pm concert, and the birds were chirping in the evening air.
That day, I was glad that I was listening. There’s so much to hear and so many opportunities for spontaneous adventures. Another fun thing I like to do is keep track of overheard conversations. Some of my favorites are:
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"I ate half an ocean of fish!" -3/7/25
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“His brain is very small. You can't be too mad at the guy" -4/24/25
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"I'm not an alcoholic! ... That's what they all say? How would you know? Because you are one." -10/10/25
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"My bank account is getting slimmer by the second" -2/7/26
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"When you do a handstand, are you holding the world, or is the world holding you?" -2/27/26
It’s so interesting to hear these tiny snippets into other people’s lives. As a writer, I’m reminded that everyone has their own character arcs and journeys, and I’ll never fully get to know all of them. Paying attention to sensory details is important to setting up a scene; it’s actually the main reason I started listening more. I realized that, as a reflection of how I think, I tend to write a lot of internal monologue and stream-of-consciousness stories. While those are interesting and character-focused, they don’t necessarily place the reader in a world, so a lot of my stories feel somewhat dreamy and abstract. In order to ground them, I have to start noticing the rest of the world myself.
I still listen to music, and I still think a lot, but I also try to still my mind to focus on the world around me. My Taekwondo class has a 1-minute meditation as part of our warm-up routine, so I let the clanking of the weight room and the whirring of the machines fade into my awareness. When I’m home, I hear the creaking of the house, the cars outside my window, and the footsteps of my roommates. There’s the beeping of the crosswalk, the quiet huff of the buses as they stop and go, the squeaking of a door opening and closing as someone enters their home. I hear the tail end of a phone conversation: “I love you.”
My favorite sound is laughter. As a graduating senior, I know there’s many people I care about who I may not see again. I’ve been trying to make time for them, to go out and get bingsu and watch movies and eat dinner and talk about anything. I hear the spoons clinking against the bottom of the bowl, the collective groans or exclamations, the murmurs of conversations around us. But more than the sounds, it’s the feelings. The emotions I associate with listening to my closest friends. It’s joy. It’s happiness. It’s love.