Some people wonder why I carry so much passion for digital music.

They question what it is which drives me and makes me so empowered and defensive of this simply logical technology.

Like many things in this world including myself, a mirage of it's image has been placed upon it and caused people to label it at first glance. Look deeper and in it you will see truth, free from corporate manipulation, free from religion & politic's pull over people's mentality. Ultimately, this technology is simply logic, zero's and one's broken down into a constant transmission and pulled back together again before final delivery.

Be it a sudden conclusion that it is here to ruin the music industry's profit motive, or be it a conclusion that it is simply a renegage technology to keep people purchasing technology, these thoughts are uneducated judgements and biased related thoughts of what this technology brings to us as mankind. Quite simply, to use my life as a living example, this technology enables me to play back these "emotions on demand" with the pressing of a button while I hold this incredibly small iPod in the palm of one hand. These emotions now available on demand keep me sane in a world slipping further and further into chaos as we go day to day.

I awaken in the morning and play some music to start my mind off right, I fall a sleep at night with only the light from the iPod illuminating before I close my eyes and drift away as the light fades from the LCD and eventually the iPod falls asleep with me. I set it to my desired length which eventually will end the transmission these passions to me, this is an example of the control over my emotional state I need to escape this drama of the typical day.

I make the people around me feel my passions for this technology as I walk through my office at Cornell wearing my headphones and in my own little zone, plotting and planning an attack to get this massive stack of work placed upon me as the "webmaster" completed before the day ends.

This is who I am, and without digital music there is no way I would be as powerful at these things which I do. Hell I don't even know if I would want to do this which I do, as I almost always am listening to music as I go about this logical work flow in my days.

The music satisfies the thirst of my left brain and enables clarity to shine through the right side again. Honestly, without this technology there would be no way I would exist as I do today, I say this completely sincerely. I would be a different man and potentially just another faceless mass in the crowd of the public doing nothing which I feel is special in my life as I live and breate in this world. But truly.. "How much difference does it make..?" as so elegantly put by one of my favorite artists and in one of my most played digital "emotion on demand", Pearl Jam's "indifference".

Lets think about this impact again.. The music carries me into what currently is a more blissful state often then the world which exists around me anymore. The world which is currently stressing me to my limits, pulling on me and bringing me into painful and often sad emotional states. Yes, being witness to this "JIHAD" simply depresses me and leave me typically quite lonely. I have also lost that which personally meant the most to me recently in my life, my 4 year previous relationship which gave me the strength to stand up in the world and be the man you see now.

When I get to a point where I can no longer handle the pressure and have to escape, digital music personally is my emotional anointment, it lifts me from this evil state and into a blissful zone calling upon the amazing healing power of music.

My iPod allows me to proceed through my day always carrying with me more music then more DJ's have with them when spinning traditional records professionally at a large party. This is nothing short of amazing.

So when people ask me what drives me, in the future I will simply point them to this poem so I can continue to go upon doing this which others require me to do - responsibility keeps a man busy and not readily available to much of that which he wants to.

What we need, as best said by the late great Aaliyah, is quite simply "a resolution". We need to stop this information war which has been underway longer then many of us have known what "Al-Queda" is. This information war will have a dramatic impact upon us as a society in the future, rest assured.

Give the people control over how they can use and how to consume their passions and you will find methods to build bridges which generate more income for this entire artistic industry ever had before. Fight the consumers and the technology, and not only do you get yourself in a rut which can not be climbed out, you destroy our economy by destroying confidence investors have in cutting edge technology.

We no longer live in the industrial age kids, it's the information age.

Bottling up that information and passion it carries and placing laws over it and labeling those who choose to use it as they desire too pirates is not good business practice nor a logical approach to the complications it's innovative technology brings to your traditional world.

I felt as if I had done an injustice to all of you which have witnessed this unique passionate export of mental thought of mine by not dropping something on the level of this in quite sometime. I write this for you to be able read again on demand as desired, to enable you to get into the right zone and know the true common grounds of this technology bridging all of us if we see it. Allow your mind to escape from the mirage placed upon it by those who which to simply monetize it and take all they can take from it like they have traditionally done with this industry, and you will not only see but even feel exactly this which makes me explain this to you. Sorry, I simply call it as I witness it, and I am not saying everyone in this music business is like this, to do so would be as foolish as those attempting to control this revolution of music distribution and consumption.

Well written Mike.

yep.... it is.... and very informative!!

Deep and very meaningful dude

well done

You've pulled from my antique mind all those things my heart had spoken! Thank you for opening our minds!!! Very Well Said!

I love didgi-net-music too!!! I'lldefend it as mjuch as I can too!!!!

long live mp3!!!!

when I tell people about what I do on the internet and where I am on the charts I always get a strange look in return!

That's cos you're a strange person dude with the ability to deliver colds across the net

thx for the feedback - this one meant a lot to me so I certainly appriciate every kind comment given up for it - truly

I must agree

i agree. gnutella will grow as riaa bleeds more money by lawsuits and passing N.E.T. laws. gnutella grows every day. every day people download stuff. and thats 1 more host for a file.

P2P is wrong. It's piracy and that is stealing. No matter how much you want to deny it.

Charging 20 dollars for a CD is wrong. It's like selling crack and that is stealing. No matter how much money you are making from it.