I’ve been listening to music on Spotify and I’ve been thinking about some of the things I’ve stopped doing because of the evolution of technology.

With the evolution of technology, I realized that there are some things I have stopped choosing for myself, such as YouTube, where the AI selects videos on my favorite topics for me. Thankfully, I don’t have to search for the videos by myself at the time.

Do you like to make choices? I used to think that choosing videos was tedious and a source of fatigue.

However, I felt that the fact that we are making fewer and fewer choices ourselves is itself creating this feeling of hassle and making us forget the pleasure of making choices on our own.

They have completely forgotten the pleasure of going out of their way to look for things.

For example, in the beginning, I used to tell Google Home the name of the music I wanted to listen to. After that, the AI would choose songs in the genre I liked, and it was so easy that I left it to it without worrying about it.

I like music and listen to something every day. However, I am now at the mercy of Google Home. I was listening to the songs he chose for me every day, and I didn’t even know what songs I really liked anymore. Furthermore, I no longer have new thoughts like, “I like this song, so I’m going to play it.” That is dangerous isn’t it?

Of course, I still like the music I used to listen to when I was a high school kid, with its history and memories. But back then, if I liked something, I would use my feet and go to the store to buy a CD with a cool package. Now, I don’t have to do that, I can get any amount of sound from my computer by Spotify.

Then I wondered where I used to get the music and what were the elements that made me like the band’s music? Of course, I felt like I liked the songs, but I had to put a lot of effort into it. I realized that things that I chose, thought about, went shopping for, made decisions about, etc., tended to make me like that content more than things that were sorted out from others or from a machine.

But too much selection or making the wrong point can also be a waste of time. As I recall, Steve Jobs tried to choose the clothes he wore because he thought it was a waste of time and only had the same clothes in his closet or something really simple.

At first I thought it was easy and a great idea, and good for me because I like simplicity.

However, I am a clothes lover at heart. So, later I get bored with my closet. If I make the mistake of thinking about where I am wasting my time, it will kill my hobby.

To be honest, it is tiring to make so many decisions every day. But, I realized that if I neglect the choices and decisions I make for the things I love, I will lose my enjoyment of things and my sense of value.

So this time, when I found myself unable to enjoy music, I decided to enjoy it through vinyl records, which had been a hobby of mine in the past.

It costs money and time to go to the record store to buy the records and choose them. But the excitement of going to the record store and spending the time to choose which record to buy one, Choosing by one is an element of enjoyment in itself.

By going out to look for records yourself, you will be able to select your likes and dislikes. You will be able to analyze yourself in detail, such as what kind of record jacket you like, what kind of atmosphere you like at the beginning of the sound, and so on.

It is also good to get to know the music recommended by other people. However, I have stopped looking at the ranking of recommendations from the Internet.

The Internet is very convenient to look up necessary information that does not change constantly, such as the location of stores, names, translations, etc. But sometimes you have to decide for yourself. However, sometimes I have to make decisions on my own, and I end up searching and getting information from Google, and I end up not knowing what is really important to me.

Moreover, as I continued to do this, it became a habit, and I would look everything up on the Internet and put other people’s opinions in my head as the first information.

For example, when you go out for dinner or on a trip, you look up recommendations on the Internet, right? However, I thought that I should first think and decide where I want to go, what I want to do, and what I want to eat before I start looking on the Internet for the things I have decided.

That way, you don’t get lost and you don’t need much information.

I realized that we should not forget the joy of making choices.

There is no standard on the Internet to measure what we really like that we are truly looking for.

You can’t find the music, movies, places, or people you really like by searching the Internet rankings.

To know what you really like, you have to make your own choices and use your own feet (actions) and head (thoughts). It is okay if it turns out to be boring after you try it. It would be a waste not to do something because you are manipulated by other people’s information before you experience it for yourself.

I hope to spend my time here in the park in the morning just sipping my coffee, putting into words what I think, and make my days more fulfilling.

ZenJin