I’ve never owned an iPod or other portable music player because I do not like listen to music in public.

I can’t tolerate not being able to hear people coming up behind me and such. Having been bullied a lot as a kid, not being able to detect people approaching in areas that I can’t see them just doesn’t work for me. And it wouldn’t be good for them, either, as I tend to be rather, uh, reactive when someone sneaks up on me. It’s just instinct, one that has gotten less severe over time.

But I did buy an iPod for a girlfriend once, so I did get to use it a little.

At the time, they were indeed amazing devices.

I like them better than smartphones.

Smartphones – iPhones and the like – feel more like leashes to me most times rather than useful and freeing tools.

I don’t care for texting and I don’t like talking on the phone. I prefer to be unknown and anonymous most of the time. All of this “social” obsession leaves me behind, and leaves me cold.

For me, being social is a one-on-one affair done in person. I also like e-mail, but beyond that it’s all lost on me.

I’ll take a day of sitting next to the river reading and talking over the frantic thousand text messages a day pace that most people seem to manage.

Where the world is going technology-wise is a place I don’t like, and it’s a place that will harm most people – not being allowed to own anything. “Streaming” means nothing is yours. “Netflix” means the company owns you, not the other way around.

The corporations are trying to make it where to experience anything in life, you have to rent it by the hour or the month.

That is just fucking not for me.

The iPod was a strike against that, that made music more yours than any other device in history.

Now we are going the opposite direction; the Cloud is just a method of ensuring that corporations and the NSA have control of your life, your data, and that you do not. Do you think Cloud everything would be pushed so hard were that not the case, not the end goal?

It’s clear that the majority of people do not want what I want, or rather they do want what I despise. All too often humans love their chains, love them more than their freedom as freedom takes work and thought.

Servitude takes none of that.