Over the past few months, I have been actively battling iTunes. This ongoing fight between the program itself and my will to listen to music is as frustrating as it is satisfying once it's over - once I win. I could go on about my frustration towards Apple, but that would be completely beside the point. If it weren't for Apple and iTunes, I wouldn't have the kind of access I want to the music I need so desperately. These past few months, I had given up completely on being able to access all of my music the way I wanted to due to a simple issue regarding updating my computer software. Which again, is beside the point. If there's anything I've learned these past months, it's that I truly do feed off of music to get me through my day to day life.
It was exhausting having to listen to the few selected hundred songs for months on end, with no other options besides radio stations that seem to dodge my specific taste for my car ride. My daily soundtrack was so repetitive. Don't get me wrong, I love all the music I listen to, but I can only hear the same song over and over so many times before I feel like it's haunting me. All of my summer anthems were pretty much out of reach, so I've been stuck in winter songs for way too long. I was going crazy.
This boring routine of the same few songs (at least that's what a hundred songs feels like to me) threw me right into a rut in my own brain. For somebody like me, monotony is the death of creativity. Everyday sounded pretty much the same, each drive generally resorted back to the same few songs (Note: Shuffle is a lie). I was in a severe writer's block and nothing seemed to change that. This may not seem like a big deal, but I felt like I was suffocating because I just couldn't get inspired like I wanted to. On top of this, I'm a musician first. I got pretty tired of picking apart the same few chord progressions.
But today we struck gold, folks. By that, I mean I finally forced myself to sit down and not get up until I had my music back in my control. I don't think I've ever been so happy to scroll through 9,000 songs and pick the ones I wanted to be my soundtrack for the next few days. This has taken me hours and I will continue to do the exact same thing every couple days to keep my spirits up.
This was not the first time that iTunes has been my enemy, and I'm guessing it isn't the last. But I will keep going to battle if it means I can have my sanity at my fingertips just how I like it.
