I would looooove to be hard-of-hearing. I rarely admit this out loud because 9 times out of 10, this is met with, "Oh, you don't mean that!" First of all, don't ever tell me what I do or do not mean. Second of all, you have no idea how much easier my life would be if my hearing were worse. I don't need to be completely deaf - just enough that I can hear with a hearing aid...and then be able to turn that jamming thing off when I don't want to hear anymore!
You know, Leonore, there are such things as earplugs. There are those polymer ones that look like wax and you mould them to fit into your ear - used by swimmers to keep the water out, or the foam ones that many workers use in noisy environments. They will work to keep the noisy universe out or at least much less present. But that presents a problem, because all those sounds anchor you in the here and now. Without them, it's a cocoon of silence, and often one discovers the noisiness of one own's mind. And that's assuming one doesn't have a case of tinnitus.
If the ambient environment is too noisy for your comfort, consider the earplugs, or perhaps some ear buds on which you can play whatever masking sound which works for you (white noise, or gregorian chants, or birds chirping, or even Wagner, if that's what works for you). My wife often sleeps with the radio on - something that works for her, but would drive me nuts if I could hear it. On the other hand, having hearing loss is a little like walking around in the dark with a rather dim flashlight illuminating the area close to you - not recommended if there are things in the dark that you need to know about.
I look good in it 
