Let’s talk CDs. Remember My Chemical Romance? I had a friend burn me a copy of The Black Parade just after it was released. That bootleg saw a lot of use. Even after the iPod Shuffle, the iPod Nano, and the iPod Video, I still held on to that CD. How else was I going to listen to music in my Pontiac Sunfire?
Those with their own prized album knew to respect the cardinal rule: always place the CD shiny side up when not in use. This worked for the most part, you could get months of use from it with no issues, but given enough time, dirt and distortion was unavoidable. This led to the peculiar behavior where some songs would start skipping…and skipping…and skipping…and skipping.
I still have that MCR album somewhere around here, and I know if I pop it into a CD player and go to track nine it will start to skip about thirty seconds in. In fact, I’m so used to it that if I ever hear that song anywhere else it sounds wrong. My scratched-up, unique tune is how it’s supposed to sound.
Hold on to that thought.
During my junior year of college, someone was trying to blow me up.
At least, that’s what I thought. It seemed that every evening, just as the sun was going down, a blue Mini Cooper would find its way parked on the street just outside my apartment complex. From my room on the fifth floor, I would peek down at it to make sure nothing strange was going on. I could see directly into the car’s main cabin from there. It was empty most of the time. But on one particular night, I noticed a digital panel with large, red numbers sitting on the dash. The numbers were counting backwards.
Unfortunately, this experience occurred after several months of amphetamine abuse—when my paranoia had reached full stride. Any innocuous stimuli within my immediate surroundings had the power to send my mind spinning. Why did that person glance at me? What do they know? While it was very exhausting to be frightened by nearly everything, I can’t say there wasn’t an associated sense of excitement. You feel much more important when you believe someone’s trying to take you out with a Mini Cooper full of explosives.
It didn’t happen.
I went outside and stood at the end of the street, smoking cigarette after cigarette, waiting for the giant eruption and flying metal. Nothing. There had to be a bomb, right? I may have been self-aware enough to know that I probably had speed-induced psychosis, but this couldn’t be that. I figured I was still smart enough to disentangle the real from the delusional. But there was still nothing. I couldn’t even see the red, digital numbers on the dashboard anymore.
Instead of admitting that I was mistaken, I doubled down. They must have hid the explosives. This, of course, would only raise more questions: who are they? why would they bother to hide them? and so on. These didn’t even cross my mind. I was already satisfied with my conclusion and went no further. I couldn’t risk being wrong; what else would that imply? It was easier to twist reality, just a little, than to face the entire, naked truth head on. Given enough time, it turns out you can convince yourself of just about anything.
Each day I would shift my reality just a bit more. Why did my cellular signal suddenly drop a bar? They must be trying to listen to my calls. If they’re listening to my calls, what else do they have access to? They could be tracking me right now.1 I should probably take my phone to get looked at. While I’m at it, I should bring my laptop in too. God, who knows how deep this goes?
Clearly, without anything to occupy my time and keep me anchored, I had fashioned an entirely new reality for myself—bit by bit. It was the same world everyone else was living in, but my version was dirty, distorted, and it felt like I was living the same day over…and over…and over…and over…and over.
It’s hard for me to remember that just because I’ve done the same thing for a long time doesn’t mean I have to keep doing it. I think it comes from a fear that I might lose myself if I do. Doing something different would make me a different person, and I already barely know how to be who I am now. I suspect this is misguided. For one, I’m still me after all these years (at least, I’m pretty sure I am). And second, I like me a lot better now than I did when people were trying to blow me up.
It’s okay to throw out the old CD (especially if you still have any in 2022). You’re still you. The song remains the same. You may even find that it sounds much better.
I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader why anyone would need to track someone who never left their room.