On Quality

It occurs to me: we live very convenient lives. Especially these days. People speak of the "modern conveniences" in vague, generic terms. But it's rather true. For instance, yesterday the Mrs. and I headed to Cincinnati for the day, listening, the entire trip down, to Damien Rice on the iPod.

Now I love the iPod. I love it's convenience. How I can store my entire collection of music on a piece of technology roughly the size of an index card. Not only that, but I can access it anywhere -- like in my car. And if I hear a song I like, I can own it. I hear also that there's a new device, aside from being a phone, that you can put up to a speaker, it will identify the song for you and offer to download it. These are the lives of complete convenience we lead.

Thing of it is, MP3 is a huge dent on the quality of music. It's not even close. Audiophiles, and I'm not quite one of them, rant on degeneration of sound that is the MP3. And they're right. CD quality is much better. Vinyl is even better than that. But we sacrifice it all for the ability to bring it with us.

There are other things we've given up too in these "modern times". Given up quality, prepared food for microwavable meals. Handwritten letters that show time and effort for short emails. Phone calls even for text messages. Cross-country road trips in cars, itself a modern convenience, for quicker airline travel. Walks in the park for the treadmill and athletic clubs. Actual sports for something called the Wii. Full-length content for highlights and summaries . Newspapers for webpages.

It's amazing and frightening how in 100 years we've stopped doing the things that civilizations for thousands of years were doing. And it's all in the name of convenience.

What will be left for the poets? For the writers? For the singers? Songs that employ those binary words that have become part of our lives? Poems that rhyme MP3 with me? Stories that describe turbulence and jet-lag? I worry for them. For how they'll have to make stories out of modern life; a life that is, in places, cold and austere, efficient. Where there is no quality, only convenience.