Death of the First Born iPod

In lieu of my writers block, I'm going to pull an entry that I wrote back in 2007 during my second year in South Korea. I don't remember writing it, so stumbling upon it was glorious. At the time, I was living in a small farming village located in an isolated valley, which, at one point, I refer to "the punch bowl." Enjoy.

Korea is a map in which all corners are connected by trains, subways, taxis and buses. There is no one place that is inaccessible through these means of transportation. Here, traveling is accessible, affordable and, for the most part, comfortable. The one thing it is not, is fast. When I say that it isn't fast, I don't mean that the drivers are slow, because they are anything but. Travel is slow because the big cities are small and few in-between. So, to see Korea, one must truly go the distance.

Destinations are strangely and exactly one hour apart, as if these roads and speed limits were designed in such a way as to help regulate and simplify the bus schedules. Of course, the farther you are, the more hours it takes to arrive, so I am constantly traveling here. I gladly opt for the token hour-long journey from my punch bowl to the nearest city in order to escape small town stagnation. 

It was through these long drives in which my iPod became both companion and best friend. My iPod was the medium through which "This American Life" - a Korean bus-ride favorite of mine - could reach and entertain my brain. It was what connected me to Hawksley Workman, Belle & Sebastian, Regina Spektor and The Shins. For all I knew, I was front row, VIP, BFF with every band and singer that resonated through my ear canal.

So when my iPod died, it was more than just a portable entertainment device that went to Heaven. It was death to Ira Glass and all the ways in which I could live vicariously through him. It was the demise to my mind-blowing silent power vocal solos held discreetly between the window and the empty seat beside me. It was an end to my personal serenades, sung sweetly to only me by dashing men of multiple musical talents. It was the annihilation of a personal world in which bus driver and fellow passengers ceased to exist - a world in which a custom stage and face-melting pyrotechnics were mine.

So when my iPod died, I was left with a kind of silence that I didn't know what to do with. For hours and a multitude of bus rides, I'd sit and pout because I didn't know how to appreciate the lack of electronics. Except, there comes a time when mourning ceases to cut it, and when this happens, there is true silence. It is in this void that the change begins to happen and suddenly I am thinking, I am praying and I am creating. 

I've already dreamt up a series of South Korean folk tales, inspired by the forest that I just noticed that we drive through. I've been writing a lot more, mostly thoughts on my experiences, and have mapped out the direction in which I'd like to go in life. So, although there is a gravestone dedicated to my iPod, there is also a shiny blue mylar balloon that reads, "Congratulations. It's a brain." Indeed, my thoughts were being held hostage by the completed works of others, when what I needed most, was to create some work myself.