Sound Of Metal: An Auditory Retrospective

I was 20 years old when the sound first "cracked" in my ears. I had headphones in, walking to class in the freezing cold of rural Illinois, when the song went from clean to garbled. The aberration lasted maybe a couple seconds, but it stopped me in my tracks. Probably a glitch with the headphones, I thought. Then it happened again a few weeks later - except I wasn't wearing headphones this time. The sound cracked when I was having a conversation with someone. But it wasn’t their voice that cracked in my ears, it was mine.

For years, that's the only word I had to explain the feeling. Cracked. The first time a doctor asked me "What do you mean by cracked?" I felt frustrated. "Aren't you supposed to know?!" was the only thought I could muster through the fear. I've since learned that "distortion" is a better way to describe it. When someone speaks into a mic and the sound from the speakers gets muddled and broken, and the feedback from the mic lets out a loud screech. That's what any sound could trigger in my ears. A conversation, an electric guitar, a police siren, my dog barking, anything.

The sound would be distorted no more than a few seconds, but it would make me deeply uncomfortable. A gentle soul rattle, if a soul rattle could be gentle. There was the physical discomfort of it all - an uneven pressure in my ears, then the sound cracking. But there was also the emotional discomfort that accompanied every instance of this: am I losing my hearing?

Since The Distortion wasn't persistent - it came and went - I never deemed it urgent enough to address. My initial hypothesis was, "this will go away with time." Four months later when it hadn't, I figured a doctor's visit would be wise. That first audiology test told me that I had "perfect hearing." There was nothing wrong as far as the doctor could tell. Both the doctor and my dad asked me if this "phenomenon" interfered with my life in any way and to be fair, it didn't (minor discomfort aside). But even that discomfort stemmed from "I was okay one day, and now I am not." I just wanted my normal hearing back. I simply wanted to be “whole” again.

This cycle ebbed and flowed for another decade. Sometimes, The Distortion would get noticeably bad to the point where I had to plug my ears for it to stop. The contortions on my face making my discomfort visible to someone around me. This would trigger a new ENT doctor visit, they'd order a new audiology test. The test would say I have perfect hearing, the doctor would say there's nothing wrong with me. I'd argue that my lived experience said otherwise. They'd send me packing with inconclusive results, only for me to find myself at another doctor's two years later.

Were the doctors wrong or was I going crazy? Probably both.

What was hard for me during this time was helping anyone understand how isolating this whole experience felt. My lived experience contradicted medical expertise. Words never felt enough to explain what I was feeling. Cracked, distorted, broken - nothing quite captured what it was. A doctor once suggested that this was maybe psychosomatic. While every test result suggested my hearing was excellent, every fire truck passing by would make me wonder if the hearing would just go away one day. Like, if the sound of the siren got loud enough, would the threshold of distortion break and sound would be replaced with silence?

Because this had been going on for a decade, The Distortion and I settled into a mutual coexistence, a distant ambivalence even. Every now and then The Distortion would call to me, make me want to address it like an ex sending drunk texts, but I found peace in letting it be and ignoring it. Another doctor had once suggested that I should consider stopping using earphones. Even the idea of that suggestion had felt anathema to me a few years prior. But something inside me started to give way. Maybe that's what turning 30 does to you. A decade closer to your own mortality, you're willing to concede the perceived infallibility of your 20s.

Right around this time is when I finally built up the courage to watch Sound of Metal. I'd known about the movie since before it came out. The premise of a drummer losing his hearing was compelling. But that's exactly what made it so hard to watch. It felt too close to home. I saw myself in Riz Ahmed, who plays Ruben, the drummer losing his hearing. What if I was losing my hearing too? Four years it sat in my watchlist, and then one Christmas break, when my wife was traveling and I was alone at home, I finally put it on. I have no other way to describe it other than “I felt seen.”

Ruben had the same experience as me but much more visceral. One day he was okay and the next day his hearing had deteriorated. The entire movie is Ruben chasing the idea of wanting to go back to being who he was before - whole. Being a musician was his identity. It gave him everything. The joy in his life, his livelihood, his relationship to Lou (his bandmate and partner). Without his hearing, he wasn’t a musician. If he wasn’t a musician, who was he? Who was he to himself and who was he to Lou? Whoever did the sound design for the movie knows more about my ears than what any of my doctors did. I could feel The Distortion through the screen. Not just the sound distorting in Ruben's ears but his life distorting in front of him. My life distorting in front of mine.

A big part of the movie is Ruben's journey to finding acceptance in the finality of his situation. I empathized with Ruben so hard. You've had this "normal" life and suddenly you get dealt this hand that makes you feel everything is being taken away from you. Of course you'll fight with your life to make things go back to the way they were. Not unlike the number of doctors I went to, and audiology tests I took.

Ruben wanted cochlear implants because that's what a doctor suggested could be a solution. Ruben pinned all his hopes on these things hoping that perfect hearing will come back. I kept hoping with my tests that something will reveal itself that will then give me back my perfect hearing. Over the course of the movie we see Ruben go through the five stages of grief—anger, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance. The most tender bits are the time he spends in a rural shelter with other deaf members.

What took me most by surprise was the scene where Ruben sells his RV and music equipment to finally get his $50,000 implants. He comes back to the shelter to tell Joe (the man who runs the shelter and was helping Ruben) that he got the implants and will be leaving. He came back to show gratitude, but you see Joe disappointed. Joe can tell that none of the things he'd tried to teach Ruben had stuck. The journaling every morning, working chores with other members, learning ASL, all in hopes of finding Ruben a new normal, had failed. From where Joe sat, Ruben in his chase for what he used to have, was no different than an addict. That scene shook me because addiction is often only seen through the lens of vices. Historically that's meant drugs and alcohol. More recently we'd argue social media and porn as well. But I could never have imagined that a chase for one's own hearing (in the face of inevitable loss) could be addiction as well. And as long as there is addiction, there is no acceptance.

Ruben is afraid of his own obsolescence which fuels his desire for wholeness. In helping Ruben recognize what he's chasing, Joe says this:

"I wonder all these mornings you've been sitting in my study, sitting, have you…had any…moments of …stillness? Because you're right, Ruben. The world does keep moving and it can be a damn cruel place. But for me…those moments of stillness, that place, that's the kingdom of God. And that place will never abandon you."

That acceptance through stillness—through journaling, through writing, through community—is what Joe was helping Ruben find. It made me question myself: when was the last time I felt any moment of stillness?

A few years ago, I found out that a co-worker lost his hearing in one ear. He said it went a little bit, then all at once. His dad had the same thing happen to him at the same age. He was the first person who truly understood what I meant when I said "the sound cracks." Watching Sound of Metal after knowing this made it even harder - because now I knew it wasn't just a plot line. It was real. It could happen. I knew it had happened to a friend. And maybe it was already happening to me.

I recognized that in my last decade, even more so since The Distortion announced its arrival, I had been subsumed by content. Some of it was my doing—I enjoy watching film and TV and listening to podcasts and music. But some of it was designed to hook you and keep you hooked - YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. In trying to run away from the fact that I could lose my hearing, I had crammed my ears with more and more and more. Maybe to feel like I had done enough “listening” before one day there is nothing left to listen. To be fair, there was no evidence that I was losing my hearing, not once. But my lived experience made me feel otherwise. Instead of accepting that this could happen to me—maybe not now, maybe in my old age, maybe never—I had tried to beat the drum of my own infallibility. In trying to consume more and more, I had left Stillness somewhere far behind.

13 years after its arrival, The Distortion is still there. It comes and goes as it always has. I don't know if it's getting worse or if I'm just paying closer attention. I don't know if I'll wake up one day and it'll be gone, or if I'll wake up one day and the silence will be permanent.

What I took away from the movie was how much we chase control. How much I was chasing it with my diagnosis—still am, to some degree. How much Ruben was chasing it with trying to get cochlear implants. But Stillness does the opposite. It's not trying to exert control over a hypothetical future by force of will. It's helping you live more fully in the present.

The movie helped me understand my own addiction and my lack of acceptance, both of which I've since tried to turn around. I'm not perfect at either but that's why everything we try is called a "practice."

I give Sound of Metal 5 drums 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁