Reflection
What’s special about this playlist is that the music isn’t excluded to a specific time period from my childhood; it’s rather a reflection of who I am and who I aspire to be one day.
A lot of the music featured in this playlist is also protest music, which helped me gain a more omniscient perspective of the world today. Songs such as “Devastated” and “Temptation” by Joey Bada$$ allowed me to understand the oppression faced by people living in disadvantaged communities. These people will face trials and tribulations that I will never experience or know of. In consequence, I began to comprehend the idea that people everywhere around the world face their own unique trials and tribulations that I may even never know of. By being able to understand these problems, I am able to bring up the conversations (of people living in these disadvantaged communities) that need to be heard and more importantly further disseminate the knowledge I learned from these songs to other people. In return, I am able to connect with these people by helping them develop a mutual empathy towards people with problems that are different and just as significant as mine if not more. The idea of using music to spread awareness of these problems is significant to my self-reflection today because it demonstrates my willingness to be perceptive and have an open mind. When I think of myself 10 years from now, I want to be able to continue to gain insight of other’s experiences to develop an omniscient view of the world and spread awareness of such issues (as opposed to someone who is ignorant and believes their problems are more important than others).
One of the 82 songs in this playlist that helped me develop an image of the type of human I aspire to be is “Love Yourz” by J. Cole. The main idea of the song is that “there’s no such thing as a life that’s better than yours”. In this song he attacks the way that society defines success, which through money, clothes, and other attributes that display a lavish lifestyle. J Cole. claims that it doesn’t matter what type of lifestyle you live because rich people and sad people both experience sadness and happiness; what matters is the people you surround yourself with. As a result, it’s insignificant to compare your life to another person’s who may be deemed more successful by the standards society has set. From this J.Cole track (along with almost every other song of his), I gained valuable knowledge and perspective from those that have experienced “success”. When I’m developing that image of my future self, I’m taking into account this knowledge from J. Cole’s perspective of being financially successful and famous. Thus, when I think of myself 10 years from now I don’t want to be that person that doesn’t care about the type of lifestyle I live, but rather care about the people I surround myself with.
