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Before I knew it, I was watching.
Not playing.
Just tilting a glass in a corner of the room, watching someone’s game.
I wasn’t even concentrating, yet I couldn’t look away.
Somehow, it was calming.
For a long time, I didn’t know why.
Into the silence, a sound
The sounds of pool arrive suddenly.
Take aim. Settle into the stance.
Into the silence, a dry crack rings out.
The ball runs.
It touches another ball.
A low, muffled sound as it is swallowed by the pocket.
And then, silence again.
You never know when the next sound will come.
But there’s a feeling that it’s coming soon.
And every time, that feeling is betrayed, just slightly.
What lies behind the “comfort” of the natural world
Why is the sound of rain so soothing?
Why does the crackle of a campfire make us sleepy?
In science, one of the concepts used to explain this kind of comfort is “1/f fluctuation.”
Not too regular, not too irregular.
When the predictable and the unpredictable blend just right, the human brain produces alpha waves and enters a relaxed state.
The murmur of a stream, sunlight through leaves, the sound of waves — I feel that something reminiscent of those rhythms, which fill the natural world, lives in the space around a pool table, too.
A steady routine: take aim, and shoot.
But the seconds between one sound and the next are different every time.
Depending on the time spent aiming, the distance the ball rolls and the complexity of the shot, the intervals are always uneven.
Perhaps that repetition of “it’s coming soon” and “a little off” creates a rhythm reminiscent of 1/f fluctuation, quietly loosening the listener’s brain.
The loud and the soft fluctuate, too
The break shot, a sound that seems to split the room.
The tiny sound of a ball rolled gently, like a held breath.
The low, hollow sound of a ball dropping into a pocket.
Not a monotonous repetition: the loud and the soft shift like waves as the game unfolds.
Not a metronome, but music.
Not a rule, but a breath.
That fluctuation changes the air of the whole room.
Why there’s a pool table in the corner of the bar
Perhaps the pool tables in grown-up hideaway bars and hotel lounges aren’t there only for play.
Even if you aren’t watching the play directly, the mere drift of silence and sound, alternating somewhere in the room, seems to slowly ease the stress of the people there.
If the shimmer of water in an aquarium is a visual 1/f fluctuation, then perhaps the sounds pool sends through the silence carry a comfort somewhat like it.
Both quietly detach the mind from the noise of everyday life.
It’s enough just to be there
You don’t have to shoot.
You don’t have to be good.
Just being in that space, something falls into place.
Before I knew it, my glass was empty.
At some point, my shoulders had let go.
Somewhere, again, a dry crack rings out.
👉 See the Yokohama Billiard Hall Guide
