The thumping pain of ear ache was bearable enough to try and wait it out, yet unbearable to do or think anything meaningful. That painful silence taught me 3 things I ignored for years.
You repeat the mistakes until you can no longer ignore them.
It wasn't the first time I've had otitis or an ear wax blockage. I'd promise myself that I'll clean my earbuds, but never actually did it. If I continue like this, I may lose hearing for good, not to mention the downtime and suffering.
You need systemized approach or elimination.
In my case, first I'd need to make a new habit to clean the earbuds often and break a bad habit of picking ears, ever again;
You're going to stick to cleaning till you forget the pain you were in and it happens yet again. So elimination is the only option.
In my case, swap to headphones that aren't inserted inside ear canal.
During this time I've practiced sitting in silence. I could listen to something, I wasn't deaf. However, at times it felt like someone is hammering a nail into my ear, rhythmically, in unison to my pounding heart. I didn't even care if something was playing or not. Also, the ambient noises were completely muffled like I was floating in space, which was actually kind of nice. Complete silence. Since I was sick and weak, there weren't even much internal chatter either, instead it was a single calm voice, one thought at a time, the only way to try and relax in the circumstances.
Sitting in silence made me realize that we willingly spend every living second paying attention to something but our own thoughts and then we wonder why we can't come up with anything new.
You need to focus your attention.
If not for that illness, I wouldn't experience the silence. If not for that silence, I wouldn't hear my thoughts, constantly consuming content 24x7, every second. I wouldn't have written that post if I didn't stop consuming, just for a few moments.