My Broken iPod Is The Taliban

Awhile ago, my iPod broke. I could still listen to music, but I couldn't skip or repeat songs, which deeply impacted how I assembled my playlists. I chose songs very carefully (which made me think about my entire library more) and when I was listening, I gave special attention to the songs I really liked, knowing that that was it -- once it was done, I'd have to wait for a new rotation until I heard it again. And often I would hear a song and think, "oh man, why did I download this song?", only by the end of the song to remember exactly why I downloaded it and fall in love with it all over. Still, it was kind of annoying but I learned to deal with it.

My new iPod was fully functional, and I felt quite spoiled to be able to skip and repeat songs, all willy nilly. I wasn't thinking about my playlists as much, and I wasn't actually listening to the songs as much. I wasn't listening to those , "why did I download this?" songs anymore. And the whole thing made me feel very uncomfortable.

I kept thinking that maybe it was better before I was granted this freedom -- that I was a more conscious listener, experiencing life more fully, when I was restricted in control over my music. While skipping songs, I thought, "Maybe it was better before. Maybe I shouldn't be doing this." And maybe it's because I was reading about Islam a lot at that time, but I started wondering if this was what it was like when the end of the Taliban and women were free to peel off their burkas. Some of them didn't. And Westerners didn't get it, for the most part.

I'm not saying that much can be gained by forcing women to wear burkas -- nothing as awesome as getting listen to that Toadies song you haven't heard in six years. It's not really the burka that was the problem, anyway, it was forcing women to wear it that was the problem. Muslim women had much bigger fish to fry. (Like, how about not being able to leave your house or study?) I guess I'm just saying that I can't even begin to judge what it's like to live in Islamic society and get used to wearing a burka and feeling safe and then being told I can take it off. It sounds so easy, but I couldn't even repeat "Push It" on my iPod even though I really wanted to hear it twice.

I don't really know what I am saying. I was really surprised how uncomfortable I was with my new freedom to whore around with my iTunes library -- a basic right as an American! Something you probably take for granted every day! What does that say about freedom and how we can get used to certain things and how we can get convinced that certain things are right or wrong or that we can be programmed to believe certain things?

Or maybe I'm just NUTS.