Lost confidence

Nauru, the island where children have given up on life. Where children as young as 10 are self-harming and committing suicide. These people have lost their confidence - how can this be allowed to continue in our world today?

Whilst we were away visiting folk in the UK a visiting preacher here talked about confidence.

Confidence... The good book says "Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised." I picture a young person full of ambition working their way to the top of their profession. But it also says that we should "put no confidence in the flesh" so maybe my picture is all wrong!

Growing older... in one sense I am still me, I don't feel any different. But my senses and memory are not so astute and I get tired more easily. And above all I am in jeopardy of loosing my confidence. Confidence in being a good husband, a good father (though mercifully my children can now look after themselves, maybe soon they'll be looking after me, God bless them), confidence in being a supposed Christian leader, a teacher, even in being an electronics design engineer and programmer. And sometimes I just feel like giving up. But I know I mustn't. And compared with these children on Nauru, or the Kenyan kids my daughter is teaching, or indeed 90% of the world's population, I have it made living here. How dare I have such negative thoughts? And yet I do: because there is some truth in the lack of my abilities which, I suppose, I must come to terms with.

I now (sometimes) use a hearing aid, I wear glasses for reading and, more recently, for driving, I manage short term memory loss by having only certain places where I leave important things: when I can't  remember where I last put my wallet I only have to look in those certain places. All very well until my routine is disturbed and I leave it some other place!

I have already decided to gradually retire my electronics design business - there is plenty of more mundane and less stressful work to fill my time here. But some of the other areas are not so easy to deal with!

I didn't quite catch what you said

“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,

“And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head –

Do you think, at your age, it is right?”

“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,

“I feared it might injure the brain;

But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,

Why, I do it again and again.”

If deteriorating eyesight and hearing means that I am old, then so be it. Ali has finally convinced me to get a hearing aid. We found a local company that has very reasonable prices and so now I (sometimes) have a Widex Dinamico 15 in each ear, and I can return them for full credit within 6 weeks if I don't get on with them. And I don't get on with them yet, but I have been told to persevere. Whenever else have I persevered, I ask?

Without doubt these yokes make things louder, and there's the rub. Not only those folk with feint voices, but also the kids screaming and the dishes clanging.

What nobody (including the "MSc qualified audiologist" who kindly tested my hearing "for free") seems to appreciate is that, for me, loud noises become distorted, and that only makes things worse and indeed verging on painful. When I have the hearing aids turned on it's OK as long as folk are not noisy. But that's a tall order in a community of 30 or so people including young children.

The other day I was running to the chalet to do some repairs and one hearing aid almost fell out: that could have been a very expensive loss. I am more careful now but it also means I do not use them when I am running or any sort of building work. Which means that the times I do use them are getting fewer.

The jury is out...

Why I cannot hear what you are saying

Several months ago, egged on by Others here, I submitted to a free hearing consultation in Newbridge. The man was thorough enough with his tests and concluded that I had considerable hearing loss and needed one of his hearing aids for five or six grand. He let me try one and showed that it improved my ability to hear quiet sounds. No brainer. But I was and still am not convinced that it would help much in a noisy situation which is where I suffer most.

Since then I purchased a small battery-powered gizmo - basically a microphone, amplifier with volume and tone controls, and earbuds. I improved the latter by purchasing the noise isolating kind that reduce ambient sound.

I suffer from tinnitus, which means that I hear constant "noise" in the higher frequencies. I'm in the lounge at the moment: Ali is sitting opposite me and talking to Caroline on the side. There is no-one else in the room. The level of my tinnitus noise is a little below that of their conversation, and I can make out what they are saying with no problem. But if they were speaking more quietly I might not because the tinnitus noise would mask theirs. Without doubt my gizmo would help in this case, even though its own electronic noise is quite audible to me.

In the praise in our meetings with its loud accompaniment (grand piano, drums, bass, trumpet, guitars), or at community dinner time (think 30 people with small children in a room with a low ceiling) another effect kicks in - my ears start to distort the sound to the point that it can become uncomfortable. When I use my gizmo it amplifies this cacophony and only makes it worse. QED. Even with the noise isolating earbuds which, frankly, do not isolate ambient noise very much.

Distortion is exacerbated when there are many sounds together, because the distortion mixes them up. Technically speaking the non-linearity of distortion can, from two sounds at different frequencies, create new sounds at the sum and at the difference of those frequencies - so two sounds become four, and four become... It is those additional sounds, I think, that make it so uncomfortable.

In the praise in our meetings I find I can actually hear better with a finger in each ear, because it reduces the level below that at which it distorts.

The undamaged human hearing is amazing. It can can distinguish about 10 graduations per semitone over 10 octaves (20Hz to 20,000Hz), and can safely detect sound levels over a 130dB range - that's a ratio of 1 to 10,000,000,000,000 times. And, of course, it is stereophonic so that it can spatially locate sounds.  In contrast the dynamic range of my hearing is severely limited especially at higher frequencies - I can't hear sounds substantially below the threshold imposed by my tinnitus, and sounds louder than an upper threshold distort and become uncomfortable. Which is strange recompense for someone who has commented on the present day departure from hi-fi.

For what it is worth, I believe my legendary Aunt Mary suffered in the same way - she used to plug her ears with cotton wool to reduce the discomfort.

Whilst people try to be understanding, there is without doubt more of a stigma over wearing any sort of hearing aid than, for example, wearing glasses. Kind of on a par with wearing no shoes. People say things behind you back, or give odd glances. Which is why I don't go around with a pair of ear defenders on (except when doing building work).