If I'm going about my business alone in the car or walking and I'm not in the mood to listen to music I'll immerse myself in a podcast. This is a typical thing but a recent one. It allows a specific kind of displacement that I first experienced when I would take my Walkman along as I took the family dog out in the evenings. Back then my choices were music or local radio, so as exciting as it was at first it wasn't much different than what was offered on car trips. With podcasts and audio books we've entered into another realm. I can be here and not here. Part of my brain is studying cans of soup while another is on the streets of Paris or in Sigmund Freud's drawing room. It's a way to not be present I suppose, which somehow feels inherently wrong, but it is also a little addictive. I carry the characters and settings I hear through the aisles of Home Depot or on the streets of Midtown and the emotions and ideas get imprinted there making these familliar setting novel. I notice that I rehear a passage later I can see in my mind exactly where I was when I heard that part the first time. I also notice that when I'm travelling or in a new or interesting setting I want to be fully immersed there and it gets my undivided attention. For a lot of people I think this new media format has replaced daydreams.

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