just one last thing before the new year
December 31st, and I woke up with a dozen things on my mind that I could do today. Not the fancy “what I do on the day before New Year's Eve” kind of things, but the more routine ones — laundry, cooking, working, and finally writing a message to my mom, wishing her happy holidays. Those types of things. But just as I unlocked my iphone and opened Spotify to put some music on, ready to slay some chores, a sudden idea struck my mind, like a neighbor ringing a doorbell and saying, “Sergei, how about you do none of those things and instead…”
“clean your fucking spotify?”
So it started. The game was on. Laundry can wait because I do it every other day anyway. But today is December 31st, and maybe I should do something that I wouldn't normally do on Tuesday afternoon. Perhaps I should warn you that I am an experienced minimalist. And maybe I am lucky today, and you are also a minimalist of some sort. So I'll get some sympathy from you for not doing what a grown-up man should do and instead hyper-fixating on cleaning the hell out of their silly music app. But perhaps your minimalism is different from my minimalism. In this case, let me give you a little context.
I hate clutter, and that covers the digital stuff as well. Unread emails? Haven’t heard of them. Files out of folders? Show me where. I take everything that's happening on my laptop and my phone seriously. In the end, that's where I spend a big chunk of my day. Just in case you haven't seen my phone's home screen, here it is:
Yes, it's in grayscale and it's focused around two things that I want to see every time I unlock my phone — the calendar and reminders. I am tired of getting distracted by my phone. I just want it to be functional. Everything else — good riddance. Even my apps are basic: notes, calculator, a guitar tuner, some banking stuff. And Spotify.
And by the way, that ios update when Apple made the names of home screen applications mandatory? I get they did it for security reasons, but yes, it's fucking annoying.
back to spotify
I opened the app to listen to some of my favorite music. Because today is a special day, the music must be special too. I scrolled through the list. I saw Radiohead's “In Rainbows” and “The Bends”, Weyes Blood's silky-smooth voice in the form of her masterpiece “Titanic Rising”, good ol' Elliott Smith, and a few funky beats albums. But as I scrolled down, there was something my brain always tried to ignore — the “clutter” music. The “once added and never listened to” albums from three years ago. That pile of random Russian rock and rap that I thought I would listen to one day, as any highly respected in the smallest of the circles Russian immigrant should. Yeah, I don't think this is happening.
I spent the next hour cleaning my music, removing every album, song, and playlist that doesn't fall under the famous Marie Kondo's “does it spark joy” criteria. I only had about five or six albums that I would listen to a lot. Those were the gems of my collection. But the rest, I didn't care much about. So quickly it was gone.
One of the gloomiest things about modern technology is that we don't own anything anymore. Instead, we rent. We lease instead of buying. And we stream instead of downloading. We end up spending money on things that can be taken away from us any day. The subscription economy. But for any minimalist, this is a blessing more than it is a curse. It frees us of physical possession, so we become lighter. We move more, and we breathe easier. Each of us will pick our own battle. Some will collect vinyl records of their favorite music, and others will have it downloaded on their hard drive. For me, other things are more important, so I am willing to sacrifice my freedom of ownership for the freedom of thought. To have just a little more space in my brain for new experiences and cherished memories.
that one thing
I spent most of my afternoon going through my music, and very likely it will be the only thing I accomplish today. I am satisfied, even though nothing has changed from an external observer's standpoint. We tend to underestimate how much things like that, no matter how insignificant they seem, weigh on us daily until we deal with them.
So today I did one thing, and it felt great.
But maybe I'll finally message my mom as well.