No matter what I do, where I am, or my age, I seem to go back to what I already know.
It happens constantly with the music I listen to. I know that the movies we watched growing up or the music we blasted in our teens create a sort of unconscious bias, which ultimately results in making us dislike everything that isn’t in line with what we have experienced.
That’s one of the main reasons why, as someone gets older, they start spouting statements about music or movies like, “they don’t make films like they used to” or “music was better in the XXs.”
I’ve found myself in that spot so many times, and I hate it. It makes me feel narrow-minded and pretentious toward the people who pour their hearts and souls into creative projects.
So, I’ve been aware of this bias for many years now, and I’ve been pushing myself to discover new music and movies.
I have to say that it sort of worked with music; I’ve discovered a plethora of good artists in the many genres I enjoy. And yet, when my spirit demands some music, I always end up playing tracks I used to listen to in the past. I’m trying to find a connection to a specific time, but I can’t pinpoint the exact year. It’s more of a time range—let’s say from the music I listened to when I was in my early teens to my early twenties. Why is that?
Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy every single second of it, but I want to understand why that is.
Could it be because I know the songs so well that I know exactly what’s coming?
Is it what my brain is actually asking for then? Familiarity?
I have access to pretty much all the music ever created on this planet, and I decide to listen to something I’ve already heard thousands of times. This has to be deeper than just listening due to familiarity. Does it bring me back to that time? No. But it does make me feel the same way, though.
Now, here comes the real question: if I do that with music, what else am I doing that with?
At least with music, it’s intentional. I have times when I push myself to discover more and other times when I just indulge myself with whatever I feel like. I’m aware of it, and it doesn’t bother me because I’m in control.
One of the main reasons I started writing in the first place was in an attempt to break a pattern. I might not have known exactly why, but my instinct told me I had to do something different. You try to hit the problem from different angles, hoping that something changes.
So, am I leaving things up to chance? I’d say yes if you don’t know what the problem is. Not every problem can be solved by being “hit,” so to speak. Every problem has a solution—most of the time, more than one—and it all depends on how well you understand the problem and your experience in the subject.
How well do I understand life? Based on the average life expectancy, I’m almost at the halfway point. So how much do I really know about it? I felt I knew so much when I was younger.
Who knows, maybe I did know more. I was definitely way more in tune with my creativity, my core passions, and what I wanted.
Could it be that as you grow older, you lose sight of what life is? Only to end up with a few minutes to spare on your existence timer and then have an “aha” moment?
I refuse to accept that.
I refuse to have that realisation when it’s too late.
But can we know for certain what life is as long as we’re in it? What if we overcomplicate things and life is exactly what it’s meant to be?
It was never meant to be analysed critically or compared to anything else; it’s only meant to be lived. Just like a movie you’ve never watched or a song you’ve never heard.
Sit down, take it in, exist in that moment, and appreciate the effort that went into it.