We still haven’t found what we’re looking for

It’s fair to say that most of us are never happy – or at least our happiness is a very transitory thing; it didn’t take three days of sunshine this week before some of us were longing for a drop of rain like lost men in the desert.

And before the winter is out, we’ll equally embrace the joy of snow for about 24 hours – before we start to complain about how slippery the roads and footpaths are.

Because we no sooner have what we craved for, than we’re longing for the very thing we had before.

Take the example of one of the side-effects of the lockdown; working from home. In the blink of an eye, we went from the noise and chatter of the office to the sound of silence, punctuated only by birdsong through the open window.

That didn’t happen to all of us of course – some people’s day was punctured by the sound of screaming children, barking dogs and/or noisy neighbours – but most of us revelled at first in the solitude of home working.

Because what was rare was wonderful.

But then – like sun and rain, snow and clear paths – we grew tired of the very thing we thought we’d love in the first place.

That’s why one Scandinavian genius has come up with office sounds on demand; a website that you can open, to have the noise of a busy office playing in the background while you work in isolation from home.

Tobias Norman, founder of the Stockholm-based Red Pipe Studios and the man behind soundofcolleagues.com, claims that his simulated office noises have attracted a million visitors worldwide, with so many of those who were previously office-bound still waiting to return to their desks.

For full column, see this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in all shops now – or purchase the digital edition; full details on this website.