My Hobby

 My hobby is music.  Specifically music on cd and to a lesser degree, the equipment I use to listen to my cds.  I've railed on streaming before and I don't like streaming unless it is the only option available such as when traveling or at work.  

I've been collecting cds for 40 years.  40 YEARS!  Literally a lifetime curating musical art.  As I look at the discs on the shelves, it becomes evident to me that 40 years is a very long time.  Not in the number of discs - I have roughly 700 cds which averages out to 16 acquisitions per year.  There were dry years and very productive years adding to the collection.  The covid years saw a resurgence into thoughtfully building out my collection.   

Today, I was looking at the spines in some of the cases and realize just how long 40 years is.  The whites on the spines printed on the paper in the jewel box are starting to yellow a little and they're starting to look aged.  As in looking at your grandparents photo albums they had prior to and when your parents were born.  Everything is still legible - but some of them are looking less than fresh; a little tired and worn.  And I'm saddened by the thought of how hold these relics are.  It makes me realize I'm not young, fresh and new anymore.  I'm old just like those cds are becoming.  

I enjoy each of them just as much as the day I first heard them.  This music is the soundtrack to my life across many genres.  Many soundtracks to movies I've seen and many never seen and have no interest in seeing.  Pour Some Sugar on Me.  Fight for your right to party.  All my excess live in Texas.  Oh how I wish Dallas was in Tennessee.  Friends in Low Places.  Thank god I'm a country boy.  Some kind of friend.  Like a virgin.  Justify my love.  Girls just want to have fun.  My angel is a centerfold.  Every rose hasn't it's thorn.  Let's hear it for the boy.  Two ships that pass in the night.  So much music I've played, or want to play in band.  Devil went down to Georgia.  Roll On 18 wheeler.  You get the idea.  My entire life pressed on aluminum discs encased in plastic.

In June I bought a Pioneer receiver made in 1974.  It was the same model my Dad had when I was growing up.  One of the channels went out and it was in repair for four months having returned to me late last month.  I have an equalizer made in the 80s.  CD players made in the 80s.  A 'modern' receiver from the early 2000s and an amp from the same era.  My speakers are from the early 2000s too.  At the moment I've enjoying the old pioneer with a cd player more than the more modern gear.  It has a certain charm and character to it.  The blue glow of vintage pioneer.  NOTHING made today is as cool as the old stuff.  I guess people call it vintage. 

I prefer nostalgic because it reminds of me my youth.  A lifetime of memories.  And as these material items start showing there age it's a reminder to me that I'm not young anymore but I can enjoy the memories of yesterday today without any degradation in quality because the cd is the ultimate medium I used to preserve my life.

I know my hobby doesn't mean anything to anyone else but me.  I hope when I am really old that it still works and my children and grandchildren will be able to listen to the music and get an idea of who I was, what I enjoyed and maybe even come to understand the qualities in the music that resonate with me.  I know this is wishful thinking.  And when I'm old and decrepit, my kids will through away my most cherished possessions the same way I disposed of their most cherished possessions because they won't have the same connection to my stuff as I did; the same way I didn't have the same connection to my parents stuff as they did.  No one will enjoy it the same way I do.  And by the time I'm steps away from death, this technology will be complete obsolete and it will end up in a landfill just like I will.  

WTH?