Pandora's Box

Pandora, for those of you that are unfamiliar, is a self-proclaimed "music genome project." It is in my opinion one of the best inventions for music in my lifetime - you enter a song, genre, or artist, and it analyzes the musical characteristics of what you entered and spits out an endless playlist of songs. You not only get to hear all the songs you know and love and choose, but you get to learn of new songs and artists that you may have never found on your own.

And if that weren't enough, you can also turn down choices it selected for you, add more variety, tell it how often to play particular songs, skip ahead to the next song, pause, get more info about the songs, buy the songs instantly, add endless amounts of stations, share stations with other people, listen to pre-made stations, and see fun facts or the lyrics of the songs playing.

Basically, you can create the perfect radio station(s) that only plays the songs you like and listen anywhere you have Internet access (yes, even on your smart phone). Unlike satellite radio that repeats the same playlists over and over again, Pandora has an endless database so it only gets better with time. The era of individuality has arrived and Pandora has certainly hit the mark with their online radio station.

Because this has been around almost 10 years now, I suppose most of you have heard of Pandora and are wondering why I'm bringing it up like it's a new thing. Here's why...

Pandora is a clear example of the direction our world is headed. Me, me, me, now, now, now. The coming trend is personalized, individualized, instant gratification. While on one scale we have the potentially unbound creativity stemming from freedom of expression and increased value placed upon individuality, the other side holds the polarization of the individuals from the group which has been time-tested to lead to the dismantling of systems and chaos. Two heads are better than one turns into my head's better than yours. When we become separated from our unity we open the door to comparison followed immediately by envy. Envy breeds sadness, contempt, and dissatisfaction. And what are we left with? Radio stations and pink iPads?

Just as in the time-old tale of Pandora's box... at least we still have hope.