Mi Theory

There are some things that come under your possession that you never use. A toy from the time you were five. A book you never really wanted to read. A DVD you watched once and left on your shelf. Furby.

Some other things can be really useful, like the smartphone, keyrings, external hard drives. Things you don't really need but that nonetheless make life just a little bit better.

And then there are the things that make life what it is. One of the things I always loved when going to Disneyland was the fact that, finally, someone found out what was missing from life and added it to the recipe. A soundtrack. Everywhere you walked in Disneyland, you'd hear happy instrumental music playing discreetly in the background. It's still like this, I think. People watch movies and dream about being in them. Not just about acting, but about actually living the life of the characters. I guess Freud would call it wish-fulfillment. Everytime I walk down the long corridor of a tube station and I hear a musician play, I smile. They are the providers of short daily doses of the soundtrack of people's lives. Then a product came along that gave people the right to transform their reality into a cinematic one, just for the price tag of approximately £200. The mp3 player. Of course, what changed everything was the iPod. But I have to take this opportunity to show off my clairvoyant skills here, by saying that about 10 years ago, before the iPod even came into existence, I bought something called the Creative Jukebox. It was fantastic. I couldn't (still can't) live without music, and this little gimmick, about the size of a normal discman, could fit my entire music collection and allowed me to take it anywhere with me. If I felt happy, I could play a happy song to go with my mood. If I was sad, I'd play a sad one. Anything I wanted to play to accompany my life, I could, just as long as I had it.

Fast forward to 2010. People everywhere have white earphones hanging from the sides of their head. Walking down the street, on the bus, the tube, the airplane... anywhere that is outside, you see people listening to their own customised soundtrack. Something to give us a sense of escape from reality, both in forming our private soundtracks but also our private world in which to live in, be it just for a few minutes.