Headphones

When I was college I always had headphones on wherever I went. I'd listen to mix tapes on my walkman and walk through campus blocking everyone out. I felt pretty isolated in college and in retrospect I think it was a way for me to isolate myself. Make myself a loner before I was isolated by my peers. My headphones were one of my major props.

During college iPod's got popular but it was still during a time where everyone didn't have them. Always being plugged in wasn't common place. After college I stopped wearing headphones everywhere and my grudge against iPod's started.

I'm morally apposed to iPods and Kindles. Anything that takes the physical tape, CD, or book out of the equation irks me. I think there's something lost, something soulless about it.

Since college iPods and listening to music wherever you go is common place. Today I saw a coworker put in his iPod simply to go downstairs and pick up a sandwich. People seem to be so averse to interaction now. People miss things that are going on around them because they are too concerned with their own insular protected world. Plug in, disengage, revert from the world. Put yourself on auto-pilot.

Something I use to do religiously in college bothers me now. The world has changed and in a big city like Chicago everyone is plugged in and seemingly afraid of participating in the world around them. What bothers me is that it makes people look like machines. Plugged in, satiated, calmed, quieted, lazy, cogs in a clock. It reminds me of the lotus eaters in The Odyssey.

Take out your headphones. Listen to the people around you. Feel the city, the trees, the buildings, and the traffic. Take it in and make your mark. Participate.

Don't be a drone.