iPod World:The End of Society, Blog #5

Enrichment of Life Impeded by Fright

Andrew Sullivan’s article, “iPod: The End of Society?,” brings to the reader’s attention the ups and downs of portable music in a metropolitan area. It refers to a culture of the “oblivious”, each one of us is stuck in our “own little musical world.” Andrew points out that we are denying ourselves life enhancing interactions which once came to us without thinking; an influence brought upon us by another person's choice of music or their matter of opinion which we happened to overhear. Though, the portability of music, nowadays, allows us to have access to a plethora of songs which we can manipulate into our own album of musical enjoyment.

            In today’s modern world, the weaknesses of our society, due to the likelihood that someone’s feelings may be hurt is in my opinion why we keep our music to ourselves. It is the reason why we cannot listen to music out loud. It goes back to the old rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” What happened to that?

In today’s age, our society walks around on egg-shells afraid that the least little thing may offend somebody. We all secretly live in fear of being sued. Our school playgrounds mirror that same fear. Every corner is rounded, padded, and made of soft plastics. The ground that the equipment rests on is covered in a cushioned rubber mat. Have we become so frail that we cannot heal from a bump or scrape, let alone heal from the emotional wounds of words? Yes, words can be eternally powerful. But what in our universe is more powerful than our mind? Nothing.

Words of another or the words from the music they listen to should not offend us, so long as our mind is strong. Our minds can fathom and create into existence vessels which can carry us worlds away. Yet, so weak that a word can impact/destroy it. We, as people, need to be more concerned with what we think of ourselves than what others think of us. Maybe then our minds would not be so easily offended, and our society not as frail. Then we, once again, can be free with our music, not escape into our own world, and enjoy the enrichment of life that others can provide.