iPod. Zune. iRiver. A billion mp3 players.

Motorola Razr. Nokia MusicXPress. A few billion more music enabled cellphones.

Walking along the road I often think of these. My iPod is plugged into my ears. Constantly.

Cycling, walking, eating, running to classes, running back from classes: headphones plugged in, I walk along hearing a beat meant only for me. Keeping me occupied, separating me from others.

Wearing the headphones projects a kind of Do Not Disturb aura (you can even see the capitals). Surrounded by people, my music player allows me privacy, even if it is in my head. No one attempts small talk, and I can walk on in peace. People seem to even get a trifle embarrassed when I remove my headphones when they talk to me: perhaps because it indicates that I am about to give what they say my full attention. (which is very very rare in normal conversations).

Perhaps I am anti-social. Perhaps I better skip the perhaps. But I value being able to have peace from speech; from constant small talk... Time to talk to myself, to enjoy melodies: anything from violins to drum beats; to not be obligated to reply when someone wants to talk to you (which is almost all the time).

And this is now possible for me. Without being rude, or being openly classified as an anti-social loner, I manage to keep a lot of time to myself while at the same time being surrounded by hundreds of people; no distractions or loud noises. Just me and my thoughts (which occasionally -- or rather often -- tend to be quite rabid).

Of course, the flip side is that I probably won't be able to hear the car blowing its horn as it comes up fast behind me and the first indication I get about it's presence is when it actually makes contact with me (which will not be gentle). Hopefully there is still a long time for that day to come.