I believe that the 10-year mark after a certain date is a weighty one.
In my experience to date, almost all things cease to be relevant after 10 years. The ones that remain just might remain for life.
I hold up many things to this bar, but I contemplate most:
- Music
- Life experiences
Music
Maybe it's just a pattern of aging, but I can't enjoy most music from my collection after 10 years. I can't still habitually listen to the Blink-182 or Incubus from my high school life, or the Jimmy Eat World and Paul Oakenfold from college, or the J-pop from the very end of college after my Japanese major was a fait accompli. Trying to listen now just undermines my previous love for it. Lyrics get picked apart and revealed to make no sense. Melodies wear thin. Heartbreaks dull.
The 10-year mark for dropping music isn't sudden, like the flip of a switch. It's more like a cliff, where interest falls off very slowly after 1 year but drops off dramatically in years 8, 9, and 10.
But a few outliers have survived past the 10-year mark and thrived. (If you were wondering, the loungey wonders Supreme Beings of Leisure and the Middle East-inspired downtempo geniuses Dzihan & Kamien are going strong after 15-ish years.)
What is it about those artists and albums? Is it better music? Is it lighter and more accessible? Or is it deeper? Is it tied to particularly strong or pleasant memories? Does music change more rapidly today thanks to technology?
Sometimes I come near the 10-year mark and fear that I'm about to stop liking music that I managed to hold on to for that long. The Samurai Champloo soundtrack, which was deeply influential as I finished my college Japanese studies, suddenly got a little stale last year and it made me uncomfortable: I never want to forget the optimism and infatuation with which I dove into Japanese culture in college, and I tightly associate Champloo with that chapter.
Life experiences
10 years seems to be enough to separate me from most life experiences - then again, I was just 22 at the time.
That's a significant age for a typical 4-year college student, since 22 marks graduation and transition on to new things. So for me, it's been a flood of former milestones, thanks to Facebook Memories keeping track of the exact dates.
College itself feels like a remote memory. I'm no longer drawn to Austin, no longer spellbound by the UT Austin campus or looking to relive my frequent drives through the western hills. My core friendships have survived, and thanks to that there are new memories with the same folks to keep the nostalgia fountain flowing.
Likewise, my time in Spain was transformational at the time, but I haven't kept up my Spanish and I've never been back to the country.
The anniversary that actually inspired this post was my departure to Japan for the first time, which had crossed 10 years in late December 2016. The trip was a magical three weeks of nothing but exploration. That trip began my love affair with Tokyo and it hasn't ended. It may be rough to work in Tokyo, but it's hands-down my favorite place in the world to play.
Speaking of playing in Tokyo: I'll never forget catching up with college friends in the middle of Tokyo during that trip. Not only was it comfortingly familiar to mix old friends and a crazy new place, but it added even more excitement to have their experience and knowledge to guide me around busy places like Shibuya and Shinjuku for the first time.
On the other hand, as I write now, I'm days away from the 10-year anniversary of leaving for rural Japan on the JET program. That memory is only receding. In retrospect, it was a sad and overwhelmingly lonely time.
Still, with a job working for Sony, and with both business and pleasure travel to Japan in my upcoming calendar, it's safe to say that the country overall survived crossing the 10-year threshold.
From my life right now, what will survive its 10-year anniversary?