A Month Without Music And how it crippled me from the inside

When Passenger sang "Only know you love her when you let her go" in that melancholic voice I underestimated those words. It was made evident to me when that song, along with my entire library, left me in a sudden bitter divorce. My computer decided that the sound of silence is the only thing I need to hear and no, I'm not talking about the song. Instead of trying to fix my computer like a normal person I decided that if life is going to play hard ball, I'd might as well bring out the Babe Ruth in me. I began my expedition of a month without music.

Spending a month without music didn't seem so hard at first. I've made bigger sacrifices in life (like how I sacrifice my sleep in the name of education every day). This was just another hurdle I could laugh at and then pole vault over like they do in the olympics, right? 

I was wrong. So very wrong. 

How daunting the task is became apparent on the third day. I was trying to finish a 14 page long report and the silence clung to me like my insecurities during puberty. I could see every word I was writing in slow motion. I realized how incredibly tedious the act of writing becomes without having Alice in Chains beside you. I could have sworn I was the victim of some sort of time manipulating poltergeist as I finished one page and checked the clock to see an entire hour had passed. Realising that this is my life from now on for the next 27 days I did what any responsible adult would have done—I wept holding my kolbalish.

The bright side to depriving myself of music was that I began to appreciate the ones in my friendlist whose sole job is to post a random lyrics to songs from time to time. I began to relish these as my brain tried to do its best impression of a speaker and sang the tune to it in my mind. Thank you, Mr. Brain, I appreciate the effort you put behind it, also thank you random stranger for sharing that Ayub Bacchu song.

As I trudged through my thirty days of silence I began to slowly lose my sanity. I know you think I'm exaggerating but that's the only way I can explain the fact that I was merrily listening to the mind-numbingly terrible Hindi songs played out loud with some broken speakers across the road in a wedding. I don't know how to look at myself in the mirror now after singing along to the tune of "Nagin" that day. But it also proves that beggars can't be choosers. I'll take what that DJ has to offer over crippling silence, thank you.  

As my self-inflicted exile began to near it's end, I could almost hear The White Stripes calling out to me. But if there's one thing I learned it's that you truly appreciate the things you have once they are taken away from you. I realised how much the sound of music brings to our lives after abstaining from it for a month. Now that I have done so, even Die Antwoord makes more sense to me and that is saying something. So don't forget to appreciate the little things in your lives, even if it's just a corny Coldplay song.