I Heart Music But...

I recently found out that music grows on you, when I borrowed someone's 5 favourite songs to listen to, while I worked. I did not quite get it the first time I heard the songs. As I listened to them again and again, I found that I liked them. Especially one of the songs. 

They say that the kind of person you are can be determined by the music you listen to. I tried to figure what kind of a person that made him but drew a blank. I have never really had one kind of music I have listened to. Right from listening to the same music that someone else in the family used to listen to (and enjoying them) to following my friends during my growing years, I have never really had a type of music preference. Of course, I have songs that I like and some that I do not but that is about it. That is why the radio works perfectly well for me. Somebody else (the radio jockey) picks a playlist he wants to play from. If it is a call-in program, there are heaps of people making up the playlist for me. If I do not like what they are playing, I can simply switch channels and listen to something else.

My moods also define the kind of music I like. Apparently, being moody and the moods defining music preferences is not a good enough excuse, to tell people that there isn't really one type of music you like. Too bad. They will just have to go without an excuse. I do not have a preference. Period. So, I was quite lost when I received an iPod Nano for my birthday last year. I mean, I loved it! It was my favourite colour and it has a screen too. It looks pretty and it is quite handy. My problem was that I did not quite know what songs to put on it. After a few stressful attempts at trying to pick one playlist or the other and having frustrating moments of not finding the sort of music I wanted to listen to, in my various moods, I decided that I would load the ipod with all sorts of music so that I could pick the songs based on what I felt like listening to. To me, it sounded like a great idea, at the time. Only later did I realize that it is how everyone else does it and I should have done that in the first place.

I have seen people looking at their phones/ipods while listening to music, in trains and buses and wondered why they kept changing their minds and not listen to one playlist. Turns out there is no such thing as one playlist. You fill up the player with thousands of songs that you like. You can fill it up with random songs or ones from other people or just something you have heard somewhere, it does not matter. My theory, that you only need to load it with songs that you really like, was flung out the window, the moment I realized this. Once you have done that, you pick songs that you like as you listen to them, one after another. Now, this is something I find really hard to get. Imagine having to keep choosing songs after each one is over! I like to make a quick list and then just let them play one after another. Having to make a choice again and again would kill me. It would stress me out immensely and take the joy out of listening to music, for me. In fact, I would probably spend more than half my journey on the train trying to pick the song that best suited my mood at the time! How awful would that be?

I guess my biggest problem is that I cannot just listen to music. I can listen to music in the background, while I am doing other things but to just stand or sit and listen to music is something I simply cannot do. I have attempted that in the past and ended up losing myself in a train of thoughts, completely blocking out the music in the bargain. The music player would have long stopped playing and I would have not noticed it at all. So, having to pick a song every 3 minutes or so would never work for me.

So, I stuck with my concept of an auto-scrolling playlist and finally made one, to play in my ipod nano. After having listened to the one fixed playlist for a little while, I got bored. I had to make another one. It was too much hard work and I did not have the time. Thus, the ipod nano was relegated to the background and stayed there for a long while. One day, I decided to get a few songs from a friend who liked 'country music'. I was going to make another attempt at the 'normal' way of listening to music on the ipod. As expected, it did not work for me. The ipod went back to the drawer and has not come out since then.

Yesterday, I got my best friend to list his 5 favourite songs. I have been listening to them since then, along with 5 of my own favourite songs. I would love to have put them in my ipod, to listen to, over the weekend. The only problem with that is that I cannot be bothered with the effort of connecting to a computer, make a list (because inevitably I will try to make a fresh list or organize the music in some way or the other) and refresh the ipod with the new songs. The ipod stayed in it's safe place. In the drawer. For now, online streaming music on my iPad will have to do. Then there is the radio on the iPad.

I'll be a hurricane, ripping up trees... 

Molly's Mystery Unravelled

"I hate my house! I hate it. I hate it. I hate it!", she yelled. 

It was strange to hear her go on like that because she used to love it. At least that is what she used to think, I think. When she was moving into the house, she had said that she picked this house because it had felt right. Of all the house places she had seen, this one was by far the most expensive one but it had felt right and she had stretched her purse strings to nearly snapping point. When the rent had increased, she had clung to it because she could not find a reason not to. Other than how expensive it was, it had just felt right. It was less than 5 minutes away from all 3 means of public transport - train, bus and ferry. She could walk to the city if she wanted to. The proximity to the river was one of the things that had attracted her most, when she was house-hunting and it continued to be a key factor. There were no major hassles with the house, the owners left her to her devices and the agent was not too interfering. In all, there did not seem to be one good reason to not like it. Yet, she had begun to feel a sense of incompleteness, off late. 

Initially, she thought that she might be lonely. Maybe she needed a flatmate. Once she started considering this idea seriously, she realized that that might not be the case, after all. She was not too sure that the place was big enough to get a flatmate. It would cramp her space. Maybe not physical space, because there was still room for another person's furniture. The study was nearly empty, save for a briefcase and an air-mattress that was almost never used. Still, it was a small house. Anyway, deciding that she would go with logic rather than feeling, she convinced herself that the cut in rent and other costs plus the possibility of getting an internet connection, which she might be able to afford if she was splitting costs, were enough for her to start looking. When a mate of hers started looking at apartments and was struggling to find a suitable one, she thought it might be a sign. They were good friends, respected each others 'space' and might make good flatmates after all. The only problem was that neither she nor the mate were too keen on sharing a unit. Both of them loved living alone. So, she decided that they would leave the option open (Plan B, if you like) and get on with life. If this one did not work out, she was going to live by herself. 

When her friend found a unit to move into, she almost breathed a sigh of relief! That was when she realized that loneliness and needing a flatmate was not the problem with the house. So then, what was it? She looked around the lounge she was standing in and found nothing wrong. During the day, it seemed like the perfect place. Lots of light streaming in, backyard, birds, plants that did not need maintenance, spacious, etc. At night, though, it did feel a little dark. Well, it is dark! She just could not put her finger on the problem. She knew something was missing. She did not know what. She decided that it was nothing and she was probably just reeling under the pressure of financial troubles. It was time to put that behind her and get on with things. She was going to stay here till the end of her lease, so it did not matter whether she found the source of her problem or not. She was not going to move out anyway. She was not going to get a flat-mate either. That was that. 

One morning, she sat up in her bed and found herself thinking, "When I step out of this room and go into the living room, I want to be able to see people". It did not make sense, yet it did. It felt like it made perfect sense. Like that was the answer she was searching for. It took her a second to understand what it meant. Surely, she lived alone and would not want to find someone sitting in her living room when she stepped out of the room in her nightclothes, on waking up one morning? She knew it was not about a room-mate. What was it? She saw herself standing next to a window. That was it! That was exactly what was missing in this house! When she looked out the windows, she saw nothing but a few plants and the lower half of anyone at the entrance to the building. The balcony was behind the house, overlooking the backyard, and she could see nothing from there either. All she ever got was the sound of voices from neighbouring apartments on holidays and weekends (not even that, during Christmas and other long holidays). The only people she saw were a man or woman from the house behind her and from the distance, she could not even recognize their faces! 

She wanted to be able to look out and see people or animals or even traffic. She lived in an underground apartment but she wanted to live on a higher level where she could see life. Then, she would be less lonely. There would be more light and more life. The nights would not seem so dark. She realized that the house seemed to close in on her on some nights. All because she lived under and she wanted above. That is why she had felt a sense of lightness when she had looked out from her mate's house one night. There was traffic to watch. She knew her answer to the agent's question that would come up in the next few months. Did she want to move out? Yes, she did! She loved the locality, the proximity to public transport, so she might look for something around there but she wanted something higher up, with a balcony and a view of life other than basic flora & fauna. 

Once she found the answers, she never felt sad in the house again. She would enjoy it as much as she could, while she was here. Because once her time was up here, she was going to move up in life. Yay!