I’ve written before about how I reset my digital life every so often. Most of those resets are housekeeping: old posts deleted, histories cleared, accounts closed and obsolete email/messages/etc cleared out. This time I’ve taken it a lot further and the reset that actually mattered to me most was my music library.
Why I Wiped It
I wasn’t unhappy with my library because it was messy. I was unhappy because I was bored with it. I’d re-listened to the same collection for years, adding albums, but never really pruning anything, and at some point I stopped listening to anything new. I kept reaching for the same few hundred songs out of thousands, not because I wanted to hear them, but because they were familiar.
By the time I reset it in March, the library had grown to more than 2,000 albums. That’s not a small thing to walk away from, but the size was part of the problem. Somewhere in there was music I actually loved, buried under years of half-remembered additions, one-off recommendations I never revisited and albums I only kept out of habit.
Starting Fresh: Again
So I erased it. All of it. No “just in case” folder set aside for later.
Then, since March, I’ve added back more than 1,000 albums, and I’ve realized I’m just rebuilding the old library from memory.
So I’ve deleted it again and this time I’m building a new one around what I actually want to listen to, which turns out to be narrower and more specific than “everything I’ve ever liked.”
What I’m Actually Looking For
The goal this time isn’t volume. It’s peace. I want music that calms me rather than music that’s simply familiar. That means spending more time with a smaller set of artists and genres instead of skimming across everything and being a lot more willing to leave an album out if it doesn’t do anything for me.
It also means listening more intentionally. Instead of putting the library on shuffle and letting habit take over I’m choosing what goes in and, just as often, choosing what stays out.
Where This Goes
I don’t know if this library will end up at 2,000+ albums again, or even if it ever should. That’s sort of the point. The old one grew by accumulation. This one is growing by choice, and so far that’s made all the difference.