Life is an iPod

As I was waiting for my class to start this morning, I was thinking about the iPod in my hands on which I was playing Solitaire. I have found that some of my most interesting thoughts come when I am playing on my iPod. I have further noticed that I usually do not remember these thoughts that I have, except today when I wrote down my thoughts before I ran off to class.

Sitting in the Geography and History building at the University of Salamanca, it occurred to me that I tend to think of life as an iPod on shuffle. Now just bear with me, as we have to make some changes to the iPod, but I think that this analogy is really cool, so I hope you find it equally impressive.

Like I said, my iPod was on shuffle and I was listening to music. I like to think that life follows a similar pattern. Perhaps it is not as random nor does it jump around as much as an iPod on shuffle does, but I think that life can get pretty random. We, the listener, do not know what song is going to follow the one that is currently playing, but the iPod sure does. We might be able to guess what song will come next, and we might guess correctly, but in the end the next song has been determined by the iPod, so only it knows. Now, you might disagree with me right here and say that not even the iPod knows what the next song is going to be, but I would like to argue that it does. If you find yourself thinking that the iPod could not possibly know, then you can stop reading right here. If you are following me and are intrigued, then continue reading, please.

The iPod knowing the song that is going to come on next, and that song being determined by the iPod are two interesting statements, especially when you think about them in relation to this life analogy I am trying to make. I believe that there is some entity that knows what is going to happen next, but that entity is not within this realm, this spaceo-temporal situation in which we humans find ourselves. I also think that the universe has been determined by this entity. At this point, some of you might be scared because if everything has already been determined, then that means that you do not have free will. If you do not have free will, then somehow you feel threatened as an individual, spontaneity ceases to exist, and an ultimate cause or purpose for you is diminished. I, however, do not feel threatened too much by this determinism. I am not sure how to convince you of why you also should not be threatened, but I will work on developing an argument. Ever since I watched The Butterfly Effect and have gained more experience of the world in which we find ourselves, I cannot help but think about how fragile life is, how our present situation is influenced by each and every single thought, movement, decision, and whim that we actualize (meaning bring to the fore, bring to fruition, complete, fulfil, etc.). Before moving on to other features of the iPod, I would like to make a few other observations/remarks. Now, as I said, the iPod is on shuffle, which means that we the listener does not know what is going to happen next, we have no idea what song we are going to hear. Despite this lack of knowledge, there is something that is going to happen next and there is a reason (although unbeknownst to us) for the order that the iPod has chosen. We might be able to explain some general patterns or demonstrate certain tendencies, but ultimately, we cannot (nor do I think we ought to) determine/describe the reason for the order. Accept that there exists one, and focus on the song playing right now.

As I turned over the iPod in my hand, continuing to listen to it on shufle, I examined it for other interesting analogies to life. As I was searching, a song that I was not in the mood for came on. I quickly turned the iPod to its face and hovered my thumb over the button that would bring me to the next song, but I did not press it. I realized in that moment that this was another analogy. Life, if we think that it is like an iPod on shuffle, is going to be random, without order, and you are never going to be able to control what is played. (I am realizing that this point is going to be complicated to analogize, so bear with me, and I apologize in advance if it does not make sense.) Whereas, with the iPod I can control what I listen to, I do not have the same control in life. If a song that I do not like or am not in the mood for comes on my iPod, I can simply skip it until I find a song that I am in the mood for. I do not think that this is the case with life. If something you do not like happens, something you are not in the mood for happens, you cannot simply fast forward to something that you do like or that you are in the mood for. You have to, as the expression goes (and thus to further complicate this analogy), play with the cards you have been dealt rather than exchange them, throw them away, or make a perfect hand. In life, there are going to be things that are tough, boring, or activities that you are less than excited for, but you have to do something about them. You cannot simply say you are not interested, not in the mood, or whatever other excuse you may devise; you have to confront the situation head-on, tackling it and doing something with it.... So with that in mind, I left the song I did not skip the song that I was not in the mood for, but rather kept it there until it passed.

Right. So I cannot know what song is going to come up next, but I did realize that if there was a song that was played earlier that I happened to like a lot, I can go back to that song and revisit it. Eventually, I am going to have to go forward, eventually the iPod is going to go on to another song, but I can temporarily visit the song again. This reminds me of memories and the past in life. In the present, in the here and now, you can look back at the things that have passed in your life and say that you really liked this or did not care for that. This is what we do every time we remember or reminisce. However, as I said, eventually you are going to have to move forward. Eventually things are going to move forward, whether you like it or not. If you decide, as you can with the iPod, to just keep pressing back and listening to that song one more time, reliving that memory just once more, you are going to miss out on everything that follows on the shuffle list. You have no idea what song is going to come next, so a song might come on that you love even more than the one that you are clinging to in the past. (As a very brief side note, I would like to comment on the power of music and say how many songs there are on my iPod and such that, when they are played, I immediately think back to some memory that I have of that song. An example would be any Chevelle song. I immediately think back to my senior year of high school and my time at the University of Minnesota. I think that this is also true for life. While things that happen in the present might transport your mind to the past, it is important to remember that you must move forward, that there are more songs, more events, to make memories of. In short, more memories, perhaps even more fond ones, await; so continue forward!)

Looking at the other buttons of my iPod, I realized that some of the buttons on the iPod can also teach us important things about life, even though there are no congruent buttons in real life. For example, on the iPod there is a menu button, taking you to the menu, where you can select whatever you may want to do: set an alarm, check your calendar, play solitaire (as I do), or (in the more modern iPods) do virtually anything else your heart may desire. In life, there is not menu button. There is no way you can get out of yourself and see what all you can do with your life. You cannot see the playlist which denotes the songs that have yet to play, nor those which have already played. As I was thinking about it, I think that the only entity that would have a menu button on their iPod would be the Supreme Entity, the Ground of Being, God. Humans cannot have this ability. Also important is the pause button on the iPod. With this, you can stop the music you are listening to in order to do something else, to simply take a break from the music. In life, there is no pause button. You cannot stop everyone, everything and just take a breather. You have to learn to breathe while you live because there is not way you can take a time-out to think about the big decision that you have to make, or whatever else you may want to do.

This sort of leads me to the headphones. After finishing the external examination of all the buttons and functions of the iPod, I thought about what the headphones could possibly represent when it comes to the analogy of life. As I sat there thinking about it, I thought about what the headphones do. They allow you to listen to the music that the iPod is emitting, making them perhaps the most important part of the entire operation. Having in mind that I currently have one of the older iPod models that does not play music out of its headphone jack, without a pair of headphones, you could not possibly listen to your iPod. Similarly in life, without something with which you can tune into life, you are not going to hear it, you are not going to experience it. You need to be connected to your life, just as the headphones need to be connected to your iPod in order to enjoy the experience. (This part of the analogy is perhaps the one with the most holes (and also the weirdest part), but I will try to work on it later.) So, when living life, just as when you want to listen to your iPod, you need some headphones, you need some tool that allows you to experience the iPod/life. You need to be connected to your iPod/life somehow, otherwise the entire experience is for nothing, it produces nothing.

This post got long in a hurry. I hope you enjoyed this weird but interesting analogy and were not too confused after reading it. I thought it was a neat analogy and found that my iPod has a lot of features that I think are analogous to my philosophy of life. If you disagreed with me, I apologize, but at least now you can tell other people that you started to read this one blog post this loony posted about how iPods are just like life.