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Recorded Music

How do you find peace in your life? I love listening to music. Listening to recordings of great music and musicians is, for me, one of the most useful and fulfilling applications of technology. In our world today, music seems to be everywhere. At parties, on the car radio, in movies and TV shows, music is deeply intertwined with our culture. In many ways, I have taken my easy access to music for granted. I can’t comprehend a time when I would not have had my phone and digital library, or earbuds and headphones to take my music with me everywhere I go. Having music at my fingertips to listen to is such an important part of my life that I hadn’t realized that it really is something very new. It’s like sweet foods; though largely taken for granted today, sweet foods, like music, was for most people throughout history something special and meaningful, even momentous. I was reading about Hector Berlioz, a Romantic composer whose music I really enjoy. There was a spec
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Listening

Are you a good listener? I haven’t always been a good listener. I used to listen only to respond, in between when it was I who was speaking. I would always be inputting my opinion, obnoxiously offering advice, always saying something but never really listening. To a certain degree, I must have conceitedly believed that my perspective was complete and accurate enough, that in listening my prerogative was not to learn and grow, but to lecture. So when I say that I am now a better listener, and put much greater weight on understanding others’ perspectives, it isn’t to say that I’ve always been this way or that I’m the perfect listener, but rather that listening for me has been a long and continuing learning process.   I am deeply aware of certain differences and disconnects between people in society. I’m Chinese-American, and while I don’t think that Asians face the same kind of prejudice, the systematic and institutional oppression and discrimination, that other
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Confidence

What are your secret survival strategies?  There’s a philosophy I live by, that goes “fake it till you make it.” It’s generic and clichéd, but works, in large part. I have many fears and insecurities that people don’t see. I act in a confident, assured manner and work quietly through my failures until I’ve reached success. But even when I achieve my goals, it sometimes still doesn’t feel enough. I don’t feel enough. So there remains a thin film of fakery in my motions, to cover up my doubts inside. I don’t say things to inflate myself or go out of my way to feed an ego, but in a quiet, nonverbal way I can’t resist, I pull that film close to me, distorting what’s inside to everyone and myself. The result is that my motivations become perverted; my fears become empowered, and I reach for success to keep my insecurities locked away and my thin cover, hiding my weaknesses, from being torn away. I see the reflection of how others see me sometimes. I see the confide
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