iPanicked

It's happened to me before. But those times I've expected it. I've prepared myself, in the quietness of my own heart and in the scope of the rest of life and the universe, for the heart wrenching, life changing inevitability. I had watched on helplessly, but confident and ready in the fact that, when it came to the bottom line, I could ultimately do nothing. But this time. This time it was so unexpected. So sudden. You just don't expect it to happen to you, do you?

My iPod died.

Mid-morning yesterday, the ol' girl just up and died. I've been through a few iPods in my time, but I've watched those gradually deteriorate over time, and reach their last legs with enough notice for me to go and purchase a replacement. But yesterday, my perfectly functional companion just conked out. Blank screen. No response. All communication with the mothership was lost. We were adrift in deep space.

I tried it all. Charging, plugging, tapping, hitting. At one point I got out one of my old discarded ones and had a dummy run on cracking it open, having Googled various DIY methods (I was left with a small pile of screwdrivers, kitchen knives, guitar picks and pieces of 1"x3" card. Don't ask about the last bit)

Finally, miraculously, the poor thing connected to my iTunes and I was able to restore all the settings and reload my music (HINT: 12,600 odd songs take a while) She's now back on her feet, pottering around in my pocket safely.

But yesterday, for about 12 hours, I will confess I was in total panic and disarray. I felt angry, sad, frustrated, cheated, disappointed, all in equal measure. The outlook was so bleak. I have no money to buy a replacement; the insurance and warranty have both run out. I've got a trip to America next week and my head has long been filled with visions of plugging in whilst coaching it across the Nevada desert with The Doors pounding my ear drums. But when that looked as if it were not to be, I was panic stricken.

I was thinking "what will I do when I'm working at school? What will I do when I'm walking places? I won't be able to listen to whatever I want in the car!"

But when the dust had settled, I began to think something else. I reflected on the situation and the large amount of wasted hours and energy and thought - "why? Why did the potential loss of my iPod for a prolonged but probably temporary period send me into such a flap?"

I'm generally becoming more and more short tempered and cynical towards the way we're enslaved to modern technology and the internet. More and more often I find myself begrudging how much of my time Facebook wastes and how I want the whole bloody thing to implode and I'm increasingly considering saying goodbye to the whole charade. I've become enamoured with vinyl and the physical value of music, turning scorn upon how the pick'n'mix culture of mp3 downloads devalues your relationship with music.

I like to think I'm quite astute and informed when it comes to being aware of the influence the modern world has on my life. But when my iPod died, I flew into an absurdly disproportionate panic. It truly unsettled me. I had no idea what kind of hold that little, nifty block of technology had on me. As a music lover, listening to music is a key part of my day to day life. I never go more than a few hours without listening to music and, if I'm out, it's obviously on my iPod.

But is loving my music an excuse for the flap I went into? My conclusion is no, not really.

I mean, what's wrong with a bit of silence? A bit of thinking time? I have noticed that when I constantly flood my ears with music, the whole practice can just get a little stale sometimes. I need a bit of to recuperate. Think about the rest of the world, the rest of life. If I'm always plugged in between doing other things, where does the time for thought go? Obviously listening to music inspires me to a lot of thoughts in a lot of ways, but sometimes it just becomes a bit crowded in my head. I've got to rest my mind. Think about life, read my Bible. As they say, silence is golden.

Even though I try to be considered in my approach to how I let modern things encroach upon my life, that doesn't mean that when I do end up under technology's thumb it's any less crass or unthinking than someone who nonchalantly surrenders their whole existence to time wasting on the internet.

For such a trivial and painfully middle class occurrence, my little iPod freak-out yesterday had a pretty big impact on me. I guess, now, none of us are ever really going to be totally free of technology. No, I'm not a Luddite or a technophobe, and I have grown up in the world parallel to the growth of the internet, but I hate the feeling of being at the mercy of a screen. I spent a vast amount of my early teens in the place and hate that fact now. So maybe I'll have a thorough rethink of how quickly I untangle my headphones every day. Come ask me in a little while.