Well, I’m married now, and I have a house to look after, and a career. But these haven’t replaced my interests. I have always collected records, then CDs, and I still do, voraciously. But old music. Music I know and love and understand. Now I can afford to buy all the music I wished I could have bought when it was new.
Now I can afford to have a Stratocaster and a bass guitar and a drum kit and a piano and an organ and recording gear. These would have been my career twenty years ago if I hadn’t been impoverished. I had to wait to be able to indulge myself. Now they’re my hobbies. I have no shortage of things to do that interest me. I’m afraid I may not live long enough to get them all in! They just have nothing to do with what’s popular elsewhere in the world.
Oh, I was never hip. My favorite music is opera, after all. But I used to have music going all the time. I loved hearing new music. I wanted music. I wanted it all.
I think it was more of a collecting urge, again. I wanted more music than I had time to listen to, just like I wanted to keep books I would never pick up again. It was acquisitive, not artistic.
I think I realized that life’s too short to care about everything, and music (and movies, to a lesser extent) was simply taking up too much time.
I’ve always been more into reading that music, and that love of reading has simply grown more. I just don’t keep the books so much. I’m too poor to buy them, and too poor to buy a bigger house to keep them in!
That’s impressive. You’re the only person I’ve ever read who made a small fortune selling Magic cards who didn’t turn around and reinvest it in other Magic cards. (Out of curiosity do those still sell like that or has the market crashed?)
I have a friend who financed a three-month road trip across the country from selling his Magic card collection, didn’t live like a poor hobo at any point, and still had money left over when he came home. Of course, that was in 2004 – I don’t think they’re quite as popular as they used to be.
New music. I used to listen to the radio all the time and was up on all the latest songs. Now, I couldn’t pick out any of the pop singers in a line-up . . . I seriously doubt I could name five singers/bands who broke onto the scene in the past 5 years.
TV. I watch “House,” “Amazing Race,” and “The Sopranos.” Oh, and episodes of “The Dog Whisperer” – I’m waiting for Cesar to be chewed to crap by an insane Pomeranian. And the news. Otherwise, I don’t have a clue what the hot shows are, the big stars, etc. And I don’t care anymore.
OTOH, I have become MORE of a collector of certain things, especially books and arty-stuff. I just bought a photograph from a local photog, and a ceramic piece by a well-known local artist – these are things I wouldn’t have dreamed of purchasing in my 20s. They have become more important to me, not less, as I age ever-so-gracefully.
Clothes. Not that I was ever a clothes horse, but I used to obsess over how I didn’t have the latest and greatest most fashionable, and how I’d never be able to find anything decent in my size, and I wasn’t trendy, and blah blah blah insecuritycakes.
Sometime in the last five years, I told my latent high school popularity anxiety to fuck off. I buy clothes that fit, that flatter, and that I like for my own weird reasons. Interestingly enough, I get a lot more compliments these days than I ever did when I obsessed.
I no longer beat myself up over not wearing makeup.
I used to think that my life would only matter if I somehow Made A Difference. I had to become famous for something - Og alone knows what, I sure as hell didn’t - and at some point, I realized that being a good person was enough, and teaching pays the kharmic bills in ways the rich and famous can only dream about.
What “other people” think. About me, about themselves, about anything.
I care what my wife thinks, I care what my son thinks. I care what a vey few good friends think, and I suppose I still care what my family thinks (but not as much as I used to). The rest of the world, I just don’t care. As long as those who I care about are OK with “me”, what does it matter what anyone else thinks?
Most definitely music. I used to live and breathe music. Now I listen to news radio in the car because otherwise I feel disconnected from the planet. My kids monopolize the TV and other “free” time at home, so news radio in the car is my lifeline to civilization.
I have no idea or interest in “new” music and I’ve heard “Hotel California” and “Stairway to Heaven” way too many times to care anymore. (Although the odd time I’ll flip and come across something old and obscure enough to grab my attention.)
I still love music, but worrying about being cool/fitting in with what is socially expected of me has dropped off considerably on my list of Life Concerns. Basically, I’m a bit of a dork, and I’m fine with that.
Age differences. Back in high school, I occasionally made friends with people a year older or younger than me, but that was pretty unusual, and the age gap would never be more than a year. These days I see nothing wrong with grabbing a beer after work with people more than twice my age.
I’m probably still not old enough to stop caring about music, but I no longer care about what other people think of my taste in music. In school I wouldn’t be caught dead listening to Elton John, for example; nowadays I’m a fan and proud of it.
I used to read Time magazine from cover to cover. I used to collect a lot of things — books, magazines, newspapers. I used to care what was on television.
I used to watch a lot of television, now it’s background noise or only on when I’m at work (it’s boring here…)
I used to care about being busy - serious. When I was in high school and starting college, I used to run around the country like it was my job - a trip to Tennessee to visit old friends and play music, a trip to PA to visit family once a month. I had a pretty set schedule to work around when I started school. Now I have a pretty set schedule, but it involves spending a lot of time just sitting out back with good friends, playing horseshoes or cornhole, working in the garden at my own pace, and enjoying a book on the porch. No reason to be busy, the time is going to pass, I might as well enjoy it.
Being a music snob. I used to love obscure bands, seek them out, and enjoy owning a thousand plus CDs. Now I am happy with the 30 cd’s I bought and put on my mp3 player in the last year or so. I still like a lot of music, but I prefer to enjoy it by listening to it once or twice and then not rushing out to buy it. It’s a little nicer that way.
Folowing the news.
Sure, I read background articles, and the big news will reach me through my co-workers. But more and more, whenever I still happen to catch a newsprogram on tv or radio, I think: the more it changes, the more it stays the same. Wars, political pissing contests, sports losing or winning, companies buying each other…they all get exchangable. Such events are outside my circle of influence: They don’t affect me, and I can’t affect them.
The only news I can still get exited about is about big inventions and solutions (" solar-powered houses now a real alternative!"“deserts in retreat!”) and animals. “Whale seen swimming upriver!”.
Yep. I sometimes think there are only about three important news events per decade. Everything else is just transient, of no lasting import. It’s not helped by the earnestness of 24-hour news now, with reporters camped outside the latest incident round the clock like they are witnessing the Second Coming.
Well, some of them might be called as witnesses at the trial, depending on exactly how far you’re prepared to go in the pursuit of looking foolish in public.
(Out of curiosity do those still sell like that or has the market crashed?)