Latent Truth #1: i’ve Had It
It’s been the source of arguable joy and much, much sorrow and heartache.
I’ve spoken of it several dozen times before, because I’m attached to it. It’s ripe (and rife) for discussion and parody, because of its cultural transcendence. But after today, I’ll finally have closure on this topic, and will be able to move on into the bright future.
Here I go again.
Latent Truth #1, with a bullet, and a weary sigh: iPods are filthy little implements of social and mental destruction, they are.
Great on long plane rides, but otherwise quite harmful.
I should have known from the start. That first interaction we had was a one-night-stand if ever I’ve had one (if). We met up in the afternoon, then I spent all night with it, and its little bedroom eye, not unlike HAL from 2001. Serenely clicking at me, until I silenced that feature. The touchable interface.
I’d surrendered completely. No questions asked. Now move your thumb counter-clockwise. It had me at “Do Not Disconnect.”
If I thought it would’ve cost me my soul, I wouldn’t have done it.
The honeymoon’s over. My iPod is pedestrian, yet dangerous.
Its makers got my money & my soul, and now they don’t care what happens.
…like when the battery’s gonna wear down after 500 charges. And I’m going to have to send it to the company to get the battery replaced, for a fee that matches the cost of a whole new machine. I’ll lose all my songs, because my computer’s not big enough for them all.
…and how they convince people that “Life is random” (the company is, via several products). Not by a longshot, it isn’t. If everything happens as the result of something else, how can that ever possibly be random? We don’t control half of our existence, so what happens may be strange, certainly. Unexpected, hopefully. But not random. There is reason and there is motivation that even reason knows not of.
…and how that shuffle feature, used continuously, annihilates free will. By removing intent – i.e., the decision that used to be made to pick a CD for *gasp* an entire day or TWO, and enjoy its nuances by hearing it more than once – listeners become passive consumers, needy for new musical material all the time. Indecisiveness is a disease.
…and how they make natural, ambient noise seem awkward and unnatural:
Doot-do-dooo, going to the bank. Oh, no! Forgot my iPod! What will fill my ears so that my brain doesn’t fall out?
Conversation. Snippets overheard from strangers. Perhaps a “hello” or a “what time do you have?” Cars honking, pigeons cooing, the bass from the stereo two floors up. All that’s part of the world, too.
Now I know why most older folk don’t like cell phones.
Sometimes I feel this gangly, younger body encases an old soul.
In case you haven’t noticed.
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