Insignificance
I lost my ear plugs again, probably it was last night when I had that birthday party. For some reason, this time I’m not going to find it or buy a new one. If you ask me to not use headphones when I had it, it’d be so difficult I guess, cause it was there; its purpose is to send my favorite songs to my ear, so why not using it? But this time, I want to give my ears quite days. No music, no podcasts, no sound. I found that it was not too bad, just like I made a rule that never put my phone near my bed anytime. It was like opioids at first — whenever I was lying on my bed and couldn’t fall asleep, my hands were almost shaking and wanted to grab my phone sleeping in the living room. But after a while, it was all good.
If life is arithmetic, we might have done too many addition operations. Unnecessary additions. Maybe it’s time to do some subtractions.
Remember when I was in high school, no mobile phones, no on-the-go music. Sometimes I was not even allowed to use the stupid desktop computer or only allowed to use it for like one hour every night after I finished my assignment from school. So the only time I could listen to my favorite music was tremendously precious to me. When I was walking home or at school time, the only thing to make me closer to my favorite songs was myself — I sang them to myself, whispering the lyrics, imagining the pictures, the world, the story displayed by the lyrics. When I finally got the time to listen to this on the computer, I was like a wolf craving for preys. I opened the music listener right after the system loaded. Volume up. Sang along with the song. Repeat. Three times. Five times. Never got bored by that. Then several years later, now, I have unlimited time to listen to music: at home, walking, waiting bus, shopping. Music is every where, but they are more like a background sound, instead of something that rippled your heart powerfully.
I read an article some time ago on NPR website. The author was questioning if we have too much music in an era when it is so easy to get access to countless songs on the Internet. That article made me realize how it feels to treasure the music you love. The booklets. The cover arts. The form of "one" carefully presented by the artists. The ambiance. The debate of the order of the songs in the album. The discussion of lyrics to fit in the world of the song. I even think that, getting access to music that easily is another form of disrespect to the people behind the music.
The more you have, maybe the less important they seem.
I thought I need a small laundry machine, so that I do not need to carry a huge IKEA bag across Boulder to do laundry.
I thought I need a floor lamp, so that I can crunch on the couch and watch Grey's Anatomy or read books.
I thought I need a pair of Scandinavian style curtains.
I thought I need some new plates and fabrics from H&M.
I thought I need a pair of new shoes.
I thought I need, well, at least, a pair of new ear plugs, ok?
Then, I finally found this quote:
“He who has a why to live can almost bear any how.”
