iPod life
When I was a boy I was lucky enough to visit Cornwall with my Mum, her partner at the time and my sister, Rachel. Hull to Cornwall is quite a long drive by British standards – about 7 hours, and around eleven if you keep getting lost! As I was going to be sat in a hot and sticky car for such a long time I decided I would be a good idea to compile a C90 tape of all my favourite Beatles songs. Classic titles like Blue Jay Way, Your Mother Should Know and Rain all made it on there. My Walkman (okay, it was a ‘Sanyo with Auto-Reverse!’) had brand new AAs, and with some spare ones in my pocket, I was ready for the long journey.
There was always something exciting about choosing which songs would make it onto a mix tape
Being a typical stroppy little 11 year old, and not wishing to have anything that even resembled a conversation with anyone else, I remember listening to around 15 songs non-stop for the whole duration of the trip, there and back. I knew which song would be playing next, every single word as well as every chord change and I was really happy.
Now, fast forward 15 years and I was the proud owner of a brand new iPod.
Not only could I listen to every CD album I had ever bought or downloaded, I could also rip and add every album that my friends and family had ever owned. At the last count, I had over 15,000 songs.
So, 15 songs and I’m as happy as a clam in high water; if I have over a thousand times as many songs then…… well all I do now is skip, skip… skip. I have become a lot less satisfied with the music I am listening to; not because of the music itself, but because of the medium I have chosen to listen with. Has the shear amount of choice killed the music, like video killed the radio star?
In case you haven’t guessed, this isn’t a post about Sanyo cassette players versus iPods and is actually a reflection of life in general. Not just my life, but also the lives of a good number of my friends who have been lucky enough to have ‘lived’.
I have travelled to more countries than most folk will ever visit in their lives; I have met more people than I can even remember; and have had more adventures than that little boy in the back of the Ford Escort had ever dreamed of having. On the contrary my sister, Leanne, has lived in Hull all her life and worked in the same admin job since leaving school. Leanne is one of the happiest people I know.
Whilst I know that her life choice was never going to suit me, I sometimes wish that I could go back to a time when things were just simpler. Trouble is though, once you’ve owned an iPod it’s so very hard to go back to cassette players.
Whats stopping you? You are the star of your show………x
iPod? Who needs one when you’ve got an iPhone. Know exactly what you mean bud, pretty impossible to get back to that tape now..
Ha, I remember that journey well, Gav. It took us eleven hours to get there!
Ah yes, the ‘cassette life’ it could be the answer to the Western world’s problems….
As always, I’ve tried both ;-)
I hear you though, also being ‘the one who moves around a lot’, I think they both have good and bad points, ‘horses for courses’ so they say, however you’ve just got to do what feels right in that instant because that’s where we *all* live whether that’s in Hull or in NZ.
That little pearl of wisdom was sponsored by Marmite™ on toast in Huddersfield on the hottest day of the year (thus far).
We all have more ‘stuff’ these days but we aren’t necessarily happier.
That said, you sometimes have to take stock and be proud of what you’ve done and achieved in the past. We all get caught up with wanting to be rich (or even just financially stable), owning that new car or travelling to that place we’ve never been to. But in doing so we forget all our other achievements.
My sister’s like yours. Very content and very happy living in the same place we grew up in. I, like you, couldn’t be. I don’t envy her but I wish I was as content in my life as she is in hers. But if I was I wouldn’t have done the things I’ve done because I wouldn’t have felt the need to.
I’ll be content when I’m 50 and married with kids. Until then I’m going to keep pushing the lack of contentedness to be always looking for ‘the next thing’ to do with my life. Yes we have too much choice these days but I’d rather have too much than too little.
Oh and btw, hi Gav!
Thanks for the comments, everyone. It’s nice to know that folk are reading this :)
Hi Gav, Greetings from Northumberland. Time away from everyday life is important. You had much more than just a holiday with Vipassana. Who said a contemplative life is easy? Very disciplined, and you definitely need a guide/teacher to help. Sounds like it would be more difficult for oldies (like me) who have never taken a real break ever to consider the essentials in life. Well done you for completing it. Same point on the music. You could focus on those 15 walkman songs and get under their skin . How many do you know as well on the ipod? There’s just too many. I wonder how many modern tracks would repay such attention. Try picking 7 “Desert Island Discs” to define where you’re at. Difficult, but an exercise to focus your musical taste and then you’ll discover what tracks/artists/genres are your diamonds on the ipod. Don’t discard everything else but use your diamonds as “quality measures” to direct you to new music experiences which are more likely to reward you and have staying power. Classics are classics for a reason. Keep well.