Hear Ye! Hear Me! (October 2,2007)

Hear YE! Hear ME!
By: Maria Reylan M. Garcia

The process of audition, of hearing is one amazing perceptual process. Just think of how two unusually shaped cartilages called the auricles can collect a mixture of pitches, frequencies and timbres of sounds all at the same time. How a 3 centimeter long canal can encompass the importance to that of Panama’s. How a simple drum shaped membrane can lead a whole band of bodily processes. The three miniscule bones called the ossicles, the incus, malleus, and stapes who ironically amplify twenty times of the sound. The nail shaped coiled tube named cochlea that secretes fluid not for defense mechanism but to continue the process of hearing. To sum things up, the auditory nerve sends the information to the command center, the brain, for the sound to be interpreted. All of these parts seem so simple and not so salable if placed on the stock market, who would bet on ear parts anyway? But each of them, along with their specific roles, integrates to a simple mission, for us to hear.

Call me berserk, I happen to see a connection between the hearing process and nation building. Hats off to the ear, how a simple organ sticking out on the sides of our face can regularly, minute by minute, second by second, finish up the process without any malfunctions, except perhaps on bad earwax days.

The auricle is the most exterior part of the ear, the one most exposed, most seen and most abused with dangling pieces of jewelry. But in what extreme deformity may the auricle unfortunately have been developed into, it still remains faithful to its mission and that is to be aware of the sounds around it and gather them to begin the audition process. Everyday people, average Joes, you and I, we should be working like the auricle. Nation building won’t start even a single step without us not knowing what to begin with, not knowing where we should start. We tend to ignore and forcibly deafen ourselves to escape from responsibility, what we don’t know is that the worst thing a person may do to his fellow men is not to do anything. The same goes with the auricle, the worst it can do the ear is not to collect the sounds, paralyzing the whole process.

Lets do some conversion, having a 3 centimeter long canal would mean around a third of my forefinger in length. Deceiving as it may appear, people may think it has no use but a simple channel or passageway, a simple inch-long tube where cotton buds would usually mop its floors. The canal makes cerumen, or what we fondly call as ear wax. Cleaning the earwax may be a healthy habit, but too much clean should ease up the entrance of dirt inside our inner ear that may cause the contamination of our eardrum. It’s the wax that glues up all the dirt, saving the eardrum from the terrible fate. Society should be too down with all the dirt, with all the downfalls and disintegration. These negative phenomenon are the reasons keeping us glued intact to our hopes and dreams as a nation. We have to clean our gutters and trash away our rubbish, but we have to understand we can’t sweep them all away because they have a purpose.

Imagine a marching band without some drum accompaniments. A total wipe-off would it be. Imagine an ear without its drum. A total wipe-off would a person be. The primary function of the eardrum is to vibrate and shift the impulse from the outer ear to the inner parts. Since I was young, my teachers used to tell me that the nation is building the youth up to be responsible citizens. I seek to know what a responsible citizen is. Let’s follow the eardrum that vibrates to the other parts what it hears. Let us remind each other our duties and obligations, even just simple ones we tend to deny and fail to perform. Vibrate to the person in front of you in a cashier at a grocery store to claim his receipt before leaving. Vibrate to your father driving that a yellow light means to slow down, not speed up. Vibrate to your neighbor to treat their house helper well and give due wage for her services. Be a drum, let others hear what they ought to hear, you ought to.

Our body is composed of 206 bones and the tiniest three of which can be found none other than our ear. The incus or the anvil, the malleus or the hammer, the stapes or the stirrup, they volume up and intensify the sound vibrating from the eardrum. Though how little they may appear, as they click on each other, they maximize the quality of the latest love song we’re drooling for. Let us be heard even though how tiny our voices are. Vote during elections, write an article about corruption, report a petty crime; some tiny things we thought that wouldn’t make a difference. The other 203 bones may make our whole body move, but all 203 of them can’t let you enjoy an RNB tune with much gusto as that of the little three. We have to let the higher authority hear our voices, they need to hear, and our voices should be also their own RNBs in the first place.

Cochlea comes from the Greek word of the same name meaning, snail, it shape would tell you why. This patriotic snail secretes fluid, called endolymph for the hearing process to reach its goal. The fluid that supposedly would bring our nation to the top are simple our potentials, we simply need to extract them out for the benefit of ourselves and everyone in domino effect. Cultivate that endolymph young ones, my friends. Study well and earn a degree in college. Work hard not just for the amateurs, not just for mediocrity, go for the best. Make the best endolymph you can to hear better, to make our nation better in the hopeful future.

The auditory nerve, without which the brain may cease to receive the sounds and we may grow old not recognizing the tune of twinkle, twinkle little star. The mediator is the role of this useful nerve, just like our government. Our system of government is called a Representative Democracy, meaning we elect officials to represent us, the people, in the decisions concerning the whole nation. They indeed are the bridges that connect our selves to our possible future. The auditory nerve when damaged will be useless, thus the magnanimous work of every part of the ear will be useless, the hearing process will not be complete. The same through with the government, even how much the people would strive for a better nation, if she is the one with the malfunction, then surely we’ll reach age ninety-nine not knowing who had a little lamb as fleece as white as snow.

The ear and our nation seem to be connected by my bizarre logic. But they are not that different after all.