Probably everyone else already knows this to the point that they no longer know it. That is, they take the phenomenon completely for granted, having accepted certain truths a long time ago. I often find myself realizing and even re-realizing things like this, things patently obvious to others, and I suspect that this is one of those times.
I recently got an iPod Nano, 8 GB. It is sleek, black, and currently contains 1037 songs, 8 half hour podcasts, roughly 4 and half hours of video, 5 hours of audiobook content, and 120 some odd photographs. All the entertainment I would think that I would ever need in a portable form - which is lucky, 'cause that about maxes it out. I have been without such a thing since last September, when my old Insignia MP3 player spontaneously winked out and died. I have had no radio in my car since last Summer, so I have been driving back and forth to work listening to - nothing. Not a goddamn thing. The noise in my head, the other cars, the sound of myself noshing or swearing or making notes for future blog entries on scraps of paper I find in my car as I tool my way on down the road through the three phases of my daily interstate commute.
I became hyperaware of traffic. Until you do what I have done - listening intently to the nothing for an extended period of time - you do not master the art of using the Doppler Effect to gauge the progress of a car behind you. This is not a skill anyone really probably needs, though it does make me a crazy efficient driver. It also makes me more sensitive than I probably need to be to other people's automotive distractions - fucking cellphones, especially. The next person I see texting while driving gets run off the road deliberately. I like the idea of someone texting about being in a ditch to their BFF while hanging upside down from the seatbelt. It amuses me.
Now, though - well, I am forced to reset. What I did not realize that I was doing was carrying my residual anxiety and stress from point A to point B. Depressurizing while listening to Ricky Gervais or This American Life causes far less psychic damage to all parties than spewing your troubles about uncooperative vendors and narrow-minded colleagues out at your spouse when you arrive home. The inner turmoil about leaving adorable children anywhere else but with you is also assuaged by some solid audio distraction. And if it's good, well - I emotionally reset. I don't leave shit behind - that's just not in me to do - but I can subjugate it for the sake of the "now."
So yes - a love letter to my iPod. Ah, the pathos of the digital age writ large. At least this is the apropos medium for such a thing. If only I could send my iPod a text from me.