Classical, pop, hip hop, rap, whatever dwarf metal is supposed to be— there are countless varieties of music spanning centuries of human experience. It’s hard to imagine a functioning human society without music, it’s that integral to everyday life. Its role in my life, though, is limited, to put it lightly.

I sometimes use the phrase “I don’t listen to music,” but that is, of course, an exaggeration. I’m a theater kid, a child of Disney Channel, a human being living in the 21st century. Naturally I listen to my fair share of songs. However, what I describe as “my fair share” is far less than what others would.

As evidenced by a piece written by the unparalleled Claire Schuppel ’24, my Spotify Wrapped statistics differed greatly from those of my peers. I listened to over 10,000 minutes of music, which I would consider to be a reasonable amount of time. This number, however, pales in comparison to the others featured; the second-lowest was over 24,000 and the highest passed 70,000!

Besides the yearly Wrapped, my lack of listening is evident. Checking the “Listening History” feature on Spotify, I can find periods of several days in a row when I didn’t listen to a single song. That’s not to say I never heard any songs on the radio or in videos, but it means that there wasn’t a single time during those days when I made the active choice to listen to any specific song.

I like music, I swear! Showtunes play in my head constantly; I’m a shill for anything written by Jonathan Larson outside of his most famous musical; and I actually think Taylor Swift is a pretty talented artist! So why don’t I listen to more songs?

I would say that the main detractor is time. Listening to music may not be a huge time sync, but taking the time to listen to an entire album— let alone an entire artist’s discography— and becoming familiar enough with each song to form an opinion about it that you are able to discuss with fellow fans? It takes a lot of time and energy that, quite frankly, I recently haven’t felt compelled to exert for any artist or album.

There is a lot of media out there and there’s a lot of it that I want to consume. My watchlist of movies is constantly growing, there are still books by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien that I haven’t read and I would like to complete “Crash Bandicoot 2” some time soon. I certainly could fit in more listening into my schedule, but I don’t feel compelled to. If I ever try to dedicate specific time to listening to new music, I can’t shake the feeling that my time could be better spent elsewhere.

The second primary factor is my desire for focus and time with my thoughts. As I have written about previously, I enjoy having time to myself with no other distractions. This means that there are plenty of times where I could be playing music, but would prefer to sit in comfortable silence where I can think things over. Not only would music potentially distract from that alone time, I like the idea that I don’t need constant stimulation.

This sub-point is kind of pretentious, but bear with me. Ever since reading “Fahrenheit 451” in high school, I have been keenly aware of my reliance on technology and stimuli. As a result, I try to avoid putting music on in the background as simply something to keep my mind busy. When I do choose to listen to music, I want to be actively engaged in it. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time or the energy to be engaged with it as often as I would like.

Is there something wrong with this? Am I shutting myself off from a whole world of art by dedicating so little time to music? Arguably, yes. There are a lot of musicians I would like to listen to— Chappell Roan and Turnover, just to name two— but have not yet gotten around to giving their discography the attention it deserves.

Going forward, I would like to listen to more music. Maybe I’ll even expand my music taste if I’m feeling wild. Because music is a truly beautiful thing. And despite my reasons to put it off, I would love to experience more of it.