Funny how a melody sounds like a memory ~ Eric Church
Creating playlists is one of the first things I will tell you about myself. Over the past few years, listening to music has become one of the most essential aspects of my daily routine. Out of all the playlists I have curated, I chose this playlist to be one of my artifacts as it is one of the few that creatively represent several aspects of my worldview. To create an alternate meaning for the usually negative phrase “the freshman fifteen” was the initial inspiration for this playlist. Over time, it also became a place to store songs that I either really liked or heard often during my freshman year at college. In a way, it is a time capsule of sorts. My playlist “The Freshman 15” is a careful selection and arrangement of fifteen songs that characterize several key values of my worldview, including creativity, reflection, and optimism through song.
I believe that everybody has a creative outlet they use to understand and express themselves. Even if someone doesn’t consider themselves imaginative or creatively talented, I guarantee there is an artistic hobby intrinsically woven into their routine that they haven’t recognized yet. Music is mine, but the scope of these hobbies is extensive. One might express oneself through the more performative arts of dance or acting. They might try to understand themselves through the softer art of writing by creating short stories, poetry, or journal entries. One might find clarity through the visual arts of sculpting, painting, and photography. They might find peace through crafty arts like sewing, crocheting, and scrapbooking. All these creative activities give people space to express and understand themselves, and music is what currently gives me just that.
Though I’m still young, I’ve gone through several creative phases. Different practices or hobbies brought me understanding, peace, or comfort in varied ways during separate eras of my life. When I was in middle school, the art I gravitated toward was drawing; I was constantly illustrating comic strips, clothing, and random concepts that popped into my mind. However, when I reached high school, I grew out of this drawing phase. It simply no longer helped me relax and find clarity. Instead, it became more of a frustration. Naturally, I shifted from one artistic phase to the next, as growing minds can be expected to do. Instead of drawing, I began to gravitate naturally towards writing; crafting my thoughts into stories or poetry was easier than turning them into a detailed picture. After slowly exploring the craft of writing, I found that I loved the art so much that I diligently taught myself how to develop my writing skill set. Expanding my talent in writing was somewhat challenging as I never had the opportunity to attend a structured writing class due to being homeschooled. Despite this challenge, the comfort this art brought encouraged me to create journal entries, play scripts, short stories, poetry, lyrics, or novels for several years. Sadly though, as I neared adulthood, my schedule grew busier and I didn’t have much time to sit down and write. Like drawing, writing became a source of stress and frustration rather than peace and understanding.
At some point during my high school years, music subtly replaced writing as my creative outlet. Back then, I was always listening to music. It was always playing in the background, whether I was cleaning my room, getting ready for the day, studying, reading, or exercising. While I enjoyed their beats and melodies, what really drew me into songs was the deep emotional level I could connect my current life with the lyrics. This private connection offered a safe space to feel and understand my growing and changing identity creatively.
When I first started creating playlists, I just threw whatever song sounded good onto a megaplaylist. There really wasn’t a purpose or reason behind their arrangements. However, after re-listening to these playlists a few years later, I noticed an underlying theme to them even if I hadn’t meant to create it. These themes deeply reflected the situations I was dealing with back then, as well as how I was internally struggling with them. Recognizing these underlying themes, I realized that I had unintentionally used music to work through emotional struggles on my own. Not only had I documented my journey through difficult situations, but I had also captured memories of the lessons and values I gained during those times through these melodies. This realization almost felt like a precious treasure; I had discovered my unique way of processing the world through music and memory.
Before this realization, I spent a lot of time searching for a perfect method of understanding myself. In my mind, using art to understand life had to be a deliberate habit that demanded a substantial amount of energy and time to be genuinely beneficial. This false assumption caused me to overlook how I was already processing the significant elements of my life through music. After seeing the themes of self-expression slowly reveal themselves through my old disorganized playlists, I felt a sense of liberation and purpose that only truly understanding yourself can bring. I decided that I now wanted to consciously work through my internal struggles and capture my memories in the form of carefully crafted playlists.
Even with this determination, it wasn’t until I moved to college that I fully realized music had become a key part of my identity. When meeting new people or being obliged to participate in icebreaker games, my interest in music and love for creating unique and meaningful playlists were the first things I thought to talk about. When working on articulating how I viewed the world for this website project, I immediately knew my playlists needed to be one of my artifacts. Still, I wasn’t sure exactly why or what they represented that was significant to my worldview. I sat with the artifact for a while, trying to understand why music was so important in my life. I even wrote a draft on a different series of playlists I’d created before realizing I still hadn’t properly presented how this hobby contributes to the greater picture of how I see life. Gradually, after playing around with the artifact concept for a little while, I saw how my values of creativity, reflection, and optimism were reflected in my most recently curated playlist: “The Freshman 15.”
My playlist, “The Freshman 15,” contains the top fifteen songs I associate with my first year at college. It is a creative twist on the phrase “freshman fifteen,” which usually refers to the weight college freshmen are expected to gain. This playlist redefines the negative phrase that discourages a healthy body image into a fun and nostalgic playlist that I can return to. It also serves as a time capsule of my first year at college by orchestrating memories into the music that constantly surrounded me during this time. This playlist is a perfect artifact of my worldview as it demonstrates how I subtly use creativity to uphold values of reflection and optimism.
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