Tag: rewiring

[This was also posted at my Dreamwidth blog yesterday as something that’s been on my mind lately.]

As I get older I find myself seeking clarity more and more. The problem with doing that when I was younger was that I was still stuck looking at that in terms of extreme opposites: I’m either Totally Locked In or I’m Completely Disconnected. I either have All The Feels or I’m Cynical and Don’t Give a Shit. I knew that wasn’t want I wanted, bur nor did I want to keep pretending that I could find a happy medium where I could be all at the same time. That just became emotionally and mentally exhausting.

Lately I’ve been thinking about it in terms of my own levels of media consumption. I’m not exactly talking about avoiding the online doomscrolling, though that has often been a problem. It’s more along the lines of remembering when I could consume with clarity. That is, like what I like to whatever degree, ignore what doesn’t resonate with me, and for the love of pie it’s not a contest with everyone else in the universe. Social media is fine if you set your own boundaries and catch yourself when you’re slipping into obsession, or the fear of missing out.

That was my issue: I’d set those boundaries and then completely forgot about them because my brain is wired to obsess. [Thus my ridiculously large music library.] I realized this when the pandemic started and made inroads to rewire my head a bit. It took a few years considering it had gotten out of control like weeds in an untended garden, but I got there eventually. There’s always weeding to be done, but it’s much easier to do now.

And now I’m at a point where I can do a bit of fine-tuning. With age and experience — and a rewired brain — I can say, ‘okay, this is where I want my head to be at, so let’s head in that direction.’ Listening to my favorite music from the past is helping, because I’m purposely not doing it only as a way to reminisce. I’m currently listening to the stuff from 2002-2003 while I work on the Remaster Edition of The Persistence of Memories. I’ve been posting the Thirty Years On series at the music blog and talking about 1996 (and continuing into 1997 because why not). And the long-game reason for doing this has to do with rewiring how I listen to current music: to once more listen to new releases that resonate with me, and to have it stay with me for more than just a few months. I know it can be done because there have been current releases that have done that (GIFT’s Illuminator album, for instance). And slowly, I’m starting to reclaim that.

It’s definitely an ongoing process, but it’s one that I’m able to control if I keep at it.