versioned

on my Spotify playlists

last updated on 21st february

I have a confession to make: I'm a playlist hoarder.

Check my Spotify account, and you'll find 8 playlists.

I have 40 more. They're all private.

I have a problem.

(Ok, maybe not a problem. I know people with 100+ playlists. I'm not that bad honestly.)

(But entertain me for a moment. I need to write about something.)

I started a tradition a few years ago where I would create a new playlist every couple of months. Each one would be a snapshot of my life at that moment—what I was listening to, what I was feeling, what I was going through.

Of course, I wouldn't be much of a programmer if I didn't name them all with a version number.

I now have playlists like v1, v2, and so on.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of versioning. It's a way to track changes over time, to see how something evolves and grows. To see how something branches off into the event horizon of possibility.

And that's what my playlists are to me. They're a way to look back and see how I've changed, how I've grown, how I've stayed the same.

When I was young and living in Shanghai, I used to lock myself in my room and karaoke to my favorite songs. I'd belt out the lyrics with all the passion and intensity I could muster. It was cathartic, in a way. Embarrassing, in another.

When I moved to the Singapore, I started using Spotify. I decided to start listening to more music, to broaden my horizons. I started creating playlists to capture the moments that meant something to me.

I write this on the one-year anniversary of v1.

It's a strange feeling, looking back at that playlist. Although it says it's only a year old, it was actually migrated from an older Liked Songs playlist that I had been keeping around for a while. So in a way, it's as old as my Spotify account.

There's something raw about it. Looking at this playlist now, I think what I really needed was proof that I wasn't stuck.

I was in a rut, you see. I was in a place where I felt like I was going nowhere, doing nothing. Moving sucks, and I was in a place where I felt like I was just existing.

And that's why I keep making these playlists. Because long after the moment is gone, long after I've forgotten exactly what I was feeling when I hit "add to queue," I'll have this. A version of me, frozen in time. A version that made it through.

By the end, it's like I've made peace with the messiness of it all. Not everything needs a resolution. Some things just are. Some people stay as ghosts in the background. Some feelings never fully fade, they just change shape.

That's what my playlists are to me. They're a way to remember that I was here, that I existed. That I felt things, that I loved things, that I lost things.

I made a blended playlist with someone a month ago. We matched 88%.

It was oddly validating, like seeing proof that someone else vibed with me in a meaningful way. That even in a world of infinite choices, of billions of people and billions of songs, two people can land in the same sonic orbit. That somehow, our preferences, shaped by our memories, our moods, our neural wiring, converged at an 88% match.

I leave this playlist on shuffle. I listen to the songs we shared, the songs we didn't. I listen to the songs that remind me of you, the songs that remind me of me.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of shared experiences. How two people can listen to the same song and feel completely different things. How two people can listen to different songs and feel the same thing.

I think it's a way to see that there's more to life than just one person. It's a way to see that there's more to life than just one playlist.

But does that make us similar? Or does it just mean that the world isn't as random as it seems?

Does it mean anything at all? To look at a number and see a reflection of yourself in someone else?

I think about chance. How every song we love is shaped by small, fleeting moments.

A favorite playing on the radio. A melody tucked into a TV show's credits. A friend handing us an earbud in a crowded room.

Every track is a thread in a pattern too vast to see. And yet, somehow, we landed here. Matching, almost. Aligned, but not the same.

I leave these questions to time. I only know that for a moment, when I pressed play, I wasn't alone. Someone, somewhere, was listening too.

I listen to the songs that remind me we were here. That we existed. That we felt, that we loved, that we lost.

I like to think of life as an endless shuffle. As Heraclitus once said,

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.

Trickling through time, we find ourselves in different places, different songs, different versions of ourselves. And yet, somehow, we're still here.

We're still listening.

I'm not sure what the future holds for my playlists.

Like an inverse proportional relationship, the more I make, the less I listen to each of them.

Maybe one day, I'll stop making them. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll wake up five years from now and stumble upon v17, hit shuffle, and be transported back to a version of myself I'd long forgotten. Maybe I'll cringe at some of it. Maybe I'll smile. Maybe I'll wonder how I ever got from there to here.

But for now, I keep making them. Not because I need them all, not because I listen to them all, but because like old journal entries, like blurry photos on my phone that I never delete, they are little reminders that, at some point, these songs meant something to me.