Don't listen to the sound of leaves being blown by the wind, from Su Shi's deafness to his thoughts

"Don't listen to the sound of leaves being blown by the wind. Why not just hum and walk slowly?"

During the spring rain in 1082, did Su Shi realize that his hearing was quietly declining?

People only know that Su Shi left behind this famous quote, but what they don’t know is that after returning home, he had a high fever for several days. The rain triggered the poet’s ear disease that had been dormant for many years, and his left ear was buzzing like a thousand cicadas. Later, Su Shi was recommended to go to Maqiao to seek medical treatment from the famous doctor Pang Anchang. Interestingly, although this famous doctor Pang was skilled in medicine, he was also deaf. So the two of them communicated with each other on paper and pen during diagnosis and treatment. Su Shi jokingly called the two of them "using hands as mouths and eyes as ears." Although the deafness did not get better, the two of them formed a deep friendship from then on.

Su Shi's hearing problems had already been known for a long time. His disciple Qin Guan once mocked his "deafness" in a poem, to which Su Shi jokingly replied: "The dust of hearing has swept away the root nature, and there is no need to sleep on the pure stream." The poem contains both the meditation of the six senses being pure and the self-mockery of hearing loss. But in ancient times, people's attitude towards deafness was basically "don't listen to the sound of leaves being blown by the wind in the forest", which was essentially a voluntary abandonment of hearing. Zhuangzi said, "The deaf cannot listen to the sound of bells and drums", but he also praised "abandoning limbs and abandoning intelligence". This contradiction reflects the Chinese people's open-minded view of life: when medicine is ineffective, they use philosophy to refine imperfections into beauty.

This philosophy still influences modern Chinese people a thousand years later. Many elderly people with hearing loss will instinctively refuse hearing assistance treatment.

According to the second national sample survey of people with disabilities, there are more than 20 million people with hearing disabilities over the age of 60 in my country, but presbycusis is often mistakenly regarded as "natural deafness in old age". When it comes to "natural", many people don't take it seriously. But is it really so? Research in recent years has shown that the brains of patients with presbycusis are playing a dangerous game of "taking money from one pocket to pay for another". It's like when the cochlea cannot transmit clear signals, the brain has to mobilize additional resources to decipher ambiguous speech, which accelerates the decline of memory and executive function.

Fortunately, as modern people, we have enough ways to deal with hearing loss. If it is a sudden hearing loss, medication is generally used as the main treatment, and sometimes it is supplemented by treatments such as hyperbaric oxygen chambers. In addition to acute hearing loss, the most common progressive presbycusis is generally recommended to be fitted with hearing aids. Contrary to many people's stereotypes, in fact, mild deafness, that is, hearing loss ≥40 decibels, should be fitted in time to avoid the degeneration of the brain's auditory center function. For patients with severe or extremely severe deafness, treatments such as cochlear implant surgery are now also available.

According to clinical research data from authoritative hospitals in China, the earlier hearing intervention is carried out, the more it can prevent cognitive decline. When hearing loss is ≤40 decibels, hearing aid intervention is adopted. After 5 years, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score only decreases by 1.2 points; if intervention is delayed until hearing loss is ≥60 decibels, the cognitive score drops sharply by 8.5 points. It can be seen that the earlier the hearing loss is intervened, the better the effect.

March 3 is coming soon. Standing on the node of Ear Care Day and looking back, Su Shi's "singing and whistling and walking slowly" is still ringing in my ears. Modern people no longer have to regard hearing loss as a fate that must be accepted. If your loved ones suffer from hearing loss, help them change in time and let them hear the world.