Going without headphones showed me you can't silence the world, or yourself, forever

I love music. But as far as first date questions, Tinder bios, and networking conversations go, talking about listening to music (or podcasts) has become a stale venture. Everyone does it. If you have a commute, you're listening. If you're walking down the street, you're listening.

Sure, once in a while you get a chance to flex your expertise on an extremely niche genre (mine is future funk), but most of the time the conversation goes like this: "Oh yeah, I listen to music. I like a lot of everything. I listen to podcasts on the morning train, yeah." 

It's hard to convey to others — without coming off as pretentious or socially inept — that from the beginning of high school until shortly after college I was always listening to something. Every moment that I wasn't required, by law or social convention, to be interacting with another human being, I had headphones in.  Read more...