For the last few years I’ve been getting into house music. It started from stutter house and now expanded into dance house. Maybe it’s a phase or maybe it’s not, but I did go through difference phases of music over the years (I don’t think this is unnatural?).
Sometimes Spotify—when in shuffle mode—will play a song or two that I used to listen to a lot back in middle/high school. And without fail, I enjoy the songs—could be Red Hot Chili Peppers, could be an Indie song from MGMT/Empire of the Sun, or maybe slightly more emo Smashing Pumpkins.
It’s been like 15 years since I’ve first discovered these songs. And yet, they still induce a mix of reminiscence/anxiousness/excitement that I felt during middle/high school. That feeling of reminiscence about being a mindlessly happy child in Korea, anxiousness about the unexpected problems that kept coming up during immigration, and excitement about the future that I could create by working hard and dreaming big.
Music was also an important part of my life back then. I picked up guitar for the first time in 7th grade and played intently until 11th grade before I shifted all my focus to academics. And so naturally a lot of the songs that Spotify shuffle plays are guitar-heavy songs / rock genre. And those songs are very different from the house music that I listen to today.
So I have changed, yet also haven’t changed. What does that mean for me? When I look back in another 15 years, I will have changed but also will still like the things that are important to me now. And I won’t even remember all the context—just like how I don’t recall how I first discovered these songs 15 years ago. So it doesn’t really matter “how” I’m doing the things I like today, as long as I do them and they are important to who I am today.