Back to Basics
Over the last ten years or so, I also fell for the convenience of everything-as-a-service. I used several of them, but music and films/series are the ones that stuck with me the most.
At some point, I started to have mixed feelings about things I would normally love doing, like listening to music.
It started to feel boring, tiring, and even overwhelming at times.
Last month, I opened my “Year in Music” report to find… silence. And it wasn’t DM’s Enjoy The Silence. It was the type of silence you hear when something suddenly clicks for you:
My music habits changed from listening to my favourite albums to playing algorithm-based playlists in the hope of finding “new music”, which effectively felt like dumb scrolling and a never-ending task.
— That’s enough! I said to myself (again)
I was having a -social media déjà vu-, so I decided to get rid of the toxic convenience in favour of good old mp3 files.
I started the experiment by ripping only a couple of my old CDs, but quickly added more. After some days it became super clear: I don’t need the world’s discography, I just want my albums.
The joy of listening is slowly coming back. Organising folders, properly tagging songs and finding album artwork surely takes time, but it’s the closest I’ve come to feeling like I’m the owner of something digital. Maybe I’ll start buying CDs again.