You hear soothing spouts of speech.
Dulcet tones of NPR hosts. Upspeak fry of millennial twang. The *ahems*, *ahs*, and agreeable grunts of spoken sociability.
Words flowing, literally streaming, into your ears.
You tap, you swipe, and you’re off. Headphones over cartilage, buds wedged into ear canals. Succumb to the experience of pure utterance.
This is the podcast, talk track of our times.
And here’s the alluring thing: you can bring it all with you. You can listen to podcasts while you walk, run, hike, or bike. Bopping along to flitting conversation. Narration floating in your mind like aural subtitles beneath your effort. Voices follow as you move along the road or trail or track.
Perhaps you’re a purist. Maybe you refuse to sully your exercise with music or discussion. Untethered, you stamp on the pedals or plod along in trainers. That’s fine. You do you.
I was like this once: always unencumbered by devices, free to ramble with only the company of the mind’…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Footnotes to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.