Notice the hum of the electricity surrounding you. Start with sounds that you can hear most clearly and then search around with your ears for other electric hums -and-buzzes. Try to hear the sound of even the quietest of the electric things in your environment.
Montreal, Nov 10, 2018, 11:49 am (action for when you feel lonely; at the late end of a relatively quiet day)
Action notes: I started with what I think is the hum of the appliances in the apartment, and then the lights. Together they sound like an orchestra, with many instruments (they are all string in my imagination) playing the same, drone-like, note. The drone feels comforting, enveloping. Almost like I could lean back into it. After a bit, I tried to hear the quieter things around me (my computer; my phone) from where I was sitting, just by attuning my ears. But I couldn’t hear anything from them without moving closer. With my ear pressed up against it, I could hear my computer — a soft “whoosh whoosh.” Nothing from my phone. At a certain point, the heat kicked on and a different register of sound invaded the soothing quality of the others: higher in pitch, faster and more insistent, overtaking the subtlety of the soundscape that I had been inhabiting.
Action constraints: It is late, later than usual, so the main constraint is tiredness — I feel my eyes wanting to close and my body waiting to get into a cosy bed and say goodbye to the day. The sound of the electricity surrounding me, in the late night quiet, is soothing, and listening to it makes it harder to keep from wanting to nod off right here where I sit. If I stayed listening longer I feel sure that I would be able to distinguish the first set of hums alongside the louder ones. But for now, the heater has really overpowered everything.