The world is getting smaller, and I believe that’s a good thing.
 
You know, for any of us who collect Any Thing, we know that there is that quest to find and to have. But, once we have, there arises the new problem of where to keep it?
 
For me, I have this fairly large collection of vinyl and CDs.
 
Once upon a time, in the long ago and the far-far away, I was dealing with this very rude and very noisy neighbor. I used to find myself wanting to leave where I lived, just to get away from all the bullshit noise he was creating. When I wasn’t going to work out, or do something like that, I would hit up thrift stores. This was back when a lot of people were discarding their LPs and 45s and CDs and stuff—before it became a big re-sale commodity on eBay, like it is now. Since, and because of this fact, there has become very little interesting vinyl to be found. Anyway, the LPs were like ninety-nine cents and the CD were like two bucks. I acquired a lot.
 
The thing was, with each acquisition, it was like a big, “Thank you,” to the grand beyond as I found some very-very interesting and rare pieces of music. …Some that I owned in my youth and younger years, and some of today’s creations.
 
I would take them home and play them and fall into that deep space of remembrance of how it felt in the way back when, as I listened and studied each note being played.
 
I don’t know about you, as you may be much younger than I, but when I was young, it was such a great feeling to be able to get that album, from that band, that you really liked. I would play it over and over and over again. In some ways, that relatively modern era of my collecting reflected those younger days.
 
Now, (and then), whenever I’ve had to deal with my record collection, move it from here to there, dealt with this or that of it, clean it up, or rearrange and/or reorganize it, all I can question is the, “Why.” In fact, there have been more than a few times that I wished someone would just offer me some X thousands of dollars, pick them up, and take them off my hands.
 
Sure, I love the music, but now so much of it has become digitized. And yeah, yeah, yeah digitized music does not have the quality of the sound that is presented on vinyl or even CDs. But, it is out there and it is so small. In fact, it is nothing. How Zen is that?
 
The world has become digitized. Sure, there are (foolish) people like me who hold on to elements of the past, like music on vinyl, and stuff. But, vinyl is dead, CDs are dead, cassettes are dead, 8-Tracks are dead, reel-to-reels are dead, Video Tapes are dead, DVD, Blu-Ray, all dead.
 
So, if you have something without possessing anything, what do you have? Yes, that is a very koan-based Zen question. The Zen answer would be, you have everything because possess nothing. Thus, you are free.
 
The world is getting smaller, and I believe that’s a good thing.