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Update on My Music Dilemma

I was kind of annoyed that I would search up random songs, read random lyrics, and then listen to random music the past week. I decided to go back to my old life of blocking YouTube. Let me tell you that it made my life so much productive. I do have that itch to search up a random song humming in my head, but I am a lot less distracted by google searches than say recommended videos on YouTube. After spending more time thinking about my conflicting feelings, I have come to some conclusion regarding why I didn't really like what I was doing. The main reason was that listening to music is a form of passive consumption. Don't get me wrong, I play classical music in the background before I sleep. The problem is that I was spending a lot more time listening instead of taking action and playing music. Playing music is a type of activity that promotes flow, which is a state optimal happiness (READ MIHALY CSIKZENTMIHALYI'S BOOK!!!). By improving on a skill through deliberate practice, I get this unparalleled satisfaction that makes me a lot more happier compared to simply playing music in the background. Passively listening to music all the time won't help me a lot when it comes to playing piano. 

After thinking about my music obsession, I started to ask myself, "What made me stop scrolling through iTunes and YouTube?" In middle school, I had this bad habit of entertaining myself by playing random songs. After entering high school, I stopped doing this and instead started playing my treasured classical music CDs from childhood or all sorts of Spotify classical playlists made for me. I guess I didn't see the point of looking up music artists or bands that I didn't like listening to half of the time. The loud sounds didn't really fit me. The random lyrics didn't interest me. I was tired of feeling like an impostor. As stated before in my previous blog post, I think I listened to a narrow genre of music in 7th and 8th grade because I wanted to be cool or different. I know it sounds pretty stupid. 

After I thought about my significant music lifestyle changes throughout the years, the question of why I never found movies or TV shows appealing but music arose. I tried a free trial of Netflix for one week in 8th grade and that is the only time I really watched a lot of TV. I apologize that my sentences are so formulaic and repetitive, but I think that the reason I never caught the Netflix bug (if that is even a thing) is that I didn't really feel true happiness or joy when I watched Netflix. Of course it was nice to watch a couple of funny movies like Freaky Friday or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, but I felt like I was becoming a lazy person who relied on watching TV ( a passive activity) as my main source of entertainment. I didn't want that to happen. While watching TV makes us laugh and forget our present situation, I don't see it as high quality leisure. As I am writing this, I know I will get a lot of hate from people who love watching TV shows or movies. I know that I sound like an extreme person who is a cult member of a religion that preaches productivity. 

Going back to the present, I am pretty glad that I blocked YouTube and other music websites so I don't let music searches distract me. I feel like playing a CD is a better experience. Unlike digital music services like Spotify, I don't feel the urge to skip a song or search for other songs. I just let the CD play in the background and not waste time scrolling through many other artists. I like the fact that Spotify introduced me to amazing classical songs by Ravel and other composers, but some of Spotify's features make me use it a bit more than I should be using. 


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