At the end of most of my work-days (or just plain-old-days, for that matter), and before I conclude my PC-/Internet- related doings, I start to get my mind out of screen mode and thinking mode by listening to music on the PC.

I suppose that part of the reason I remain at the PC and listen there has to do with my own preference to make a gradual transition from screen/thinking mode to away-from-the-computer mode. I don't know... Maybe other people can just stop what they're doing at their computer and start doing something else (or else go to sleep). I can't. Part of the reason for that is, I guess, that I both do real work at my PC and "borderline work" (for example, the spare-time writing I do that has turned into a second income and that I sometimes - but only sometimes - take seriously). In any case, as a writer, I do a whole lot of mental-mode switching over the course of my computer-day. And, in order to keep up the mental energy to be able to write my several-thousand words a day I have to work up to a kind of extreme level of mental energy from the time I begin working. I pretty much start slow. It doesn't help that I live with a kind of long-term-stress exhaustion that probably means I have some form of "adrenal fatigue" at this point. (One of the symptoms of adrenal fatigue is having trouble getting going each morning and generally building up energy for "x number" of hours before an afternoon slump kicks in for awhile.)

That's neither here nor there, though, because I 've found ways to function (and function quite well) by going with my own rhythms and taking advantage of what, in spite of whatever my "issue" is, is a pretty high degree of mental energy. The point is that I build up ability to run at high-speed over the course of the early part of the day, am not horribly disadvantaged by any afternoon slump, and then kick into super-high gear.

Regardless of the time of day,my writing speed on things I write from my own head is about five thousand words in a couple of hours, I think. With days that average anywhere between nineteen hours (sometimes less) and twenty-one hours (sometimes more), I generally get a whole lot of one type of writing or another done each day. My way of getting "a mental rest" from it all is to do what I enjoy doing in my "down time" - and that is writing whatever I feel like writing. Odd, maybe, that writing can be a break from so much writing; but that's what works for me. (Well, that and some sunshine and fresh air somewhere along the way.)

In any case, I listen to the music as a way of transitioning out of whatever high-gear mental-mode I've worked my way into. Somehow, I suppose, I'd compare the mental process to sledding downhill as opposed to, say, falling off a cliff. I don't need to fall off any mental cliffs. Part of why have what "issue" I have with exhaustion is that my life has been an unrelenting and beyond-reasonable number of mental cliffs and a process of climbing back up, only to fall off yet another cliff.

So, while I, like most people perhaps, have all my music on just about every kind of gadget that stores music (or at least stores it on an SD card), I choose to remain in my "office chair", turn the lights off, and listen to music until either I can no longer keep my ever-increasingly slumped back, and ever-increasinly drowsy brain, sitting in pathetically in the dark in an "office chair".

Please not that it's not quite as pathetic as I make it all sound. I do have a life. The thing is, however, my children are grown; and I my work is at the computer. So, other than weekends, how much "life", exactly, is anyone who must work going to have? On the other hand, and depending on the day and whether the day has included much of that life I mentioned; sometimes it's pretty much every bit as pathetic as I've made it all sound. (Can I have an "lol" here, just to preserve my own delusion of having a little remaining pride after what I've just said....).

In any event, my PC has my "master" music list. (So, actually, do a bunch of disks, flash drives, and whatever else.), but I've selected only the most favored songs for some of those other devices I mentioned. This means that my PC, at this point, has "zillions" of music files, many of which involve songs I'm so sick of I can't stand them at this point.

One reason I have so many songs is that I wasn't young when mP3's came out. It was after a lifetime of a quest for being able to have all the music I wanted (and ideally, to have it with me at all times), only to live with disadvantage of the pre-mP3 era; which was that one can only carry around and/or store so many records, CD's or mixed tapes in any one place or time. So, when mP3's came out, after a lifetimes of that quest, I didn't just aim to get all the best music that was "the latest". I aimed to find all the best music (according to me) that had ever been recorded anywhere, since, for the most part, the beginning of music-recording time. It took me a few years to build up my collection to the point where I can think of absolutely no other song that I'll ever want or need. BUT, "since the beginning of music-recording time" does involve quite the number of songs.

And, that brings me to my present situation which is that I'm now so sick of such a high percentage of the songs I have, I find that I get aggravated with just about every song on the list and do so much clicking away from so many songs that I suspect I may develop carpal tunnel syndrome if I don't clean out some of those files.

Why don't I just do that? Well, as I said; I do have a life; and as it is now, I spend far more time trying to earn a living than I spend actually living that life. As I also said, I need that music-transition time at the end of my days if I'm to smoothly transfer from high-speed thinking to regular-speed thinking. And, as I also said, I've had so many mental cliffs to deal with over the course of a lot of years, I plain, old, can't be bothered cleaning out a bunch of music files (particularly when the only time they bother me is when I'm playing music and certainly not about to muster up some more mental energy in order to deal with the task of music-file clean-up).

So, as I sit in the dark in my office chair, being made more and more aggravated and irritable with each song that I've been hating for years now; I realize that my once effective method of transitioning from work to non-work mode is now kind of backfiring. I have an increasing sense of urgency with regard to the task of cleaning out all those sources of aggravation and irritation (not to mention the whole thing about risking carpal tunnel syndrome to boot).

One answer to this ever-present dilemma is, of course, to click off "shuffle" and select the songs I want to hear; but here's the thing: That's too much work. (Can I have another "lol" here, please...) When music time comes I'm not here to do more work. I'm here to make that transition from screen- /Internet- mode to life mode; and life mode requires sleep mode (at least here or there). Man does not live by computer and/or Internet alone. Then again, if "man" doesn't clean out his (or in this case, her) music files, and restore that transition time to the pleasure that it no longer is, a certain person just may go out and fine a real-life cliff from which to jump - thereby solving a whole lot of problems, including the music-files one.