Influencers

I have a Yahoo Music Launchcast account. I listen to it right up until they kill my free service, and then I go back to listening to the music in and around my house until I have the freeness again. I'm not proud of that, but that's neither here nor there.

I was fumbling around that site (is it me, or do I spend too much time fumbling about the internet?) and I discovered that, some how, I was a part of their Influencer list. Someone, a "luvtink81", listed my station as an influence.

Meaning, I think, that my taste of music influences the type of music his/her station plays

Which is deeply fascinating to me. (Obviously.) The thought that, without even knowing about it, without putting any effort in it, I'm affecting someone's life is a bit... I dunno... off putting?

I mean, I have thought about it. Every action has a reaction. Kindness begets kindness, cruelty begets cruelty, and so on. Just common sense, really.

But when it happens without any conscious effort... It really makes me think.

Say I enter a store. The way I conduct my business there, the way I interact with the employees and the customers, even the way I look at items on the shelf, all has an effect on everything that proceeds inside the story from that point on. It maybe profound, it may be next to nonexistent, but it does have an effect.

This might sound egocentric, and it is.

BEHOLD THE POWER THAT I POSSESS!

But the honest truth is that we all possess this power, this ability to influence the lives of those around us. For good or for ill. In joy or in sorrow. In cold indifference or overpowering rage. In earthshaking proportions or minute fractions. We matter. No matter where we put our feet down in life, we matter. We make a difference.

Which, I suppose, should be a comfort.

And it is, until I consider that kindness can also beget cruelty. That a joke or a smile could be taken wrong, could even make a day worse. It goes the other way, I know. One person's misery is another's laughter, I think it has been said.

It's just I'd rather my good deed produce good deeds, thank you. I'll never know if it does, any more than I'll know if putting that DVD face forward on the shelf will result in someone owning a copy of "Dracula V. Frankenstien" or if the ice cube that bounced out of my cup at my local Quik Trip will cause someone to slip and fall. But just the idea that I might be the focus of chaos, pain, misery, and I dare not think what else is a little much for me to take.

Which is why I'm glad I'm a virtual shut-in. I mean, that way I affect as few people as possible.

Only... Isn't not taking an action an action? That by denying others the dubious pleasure of my company, I might be affecting their potential happiness and well being…

Ah.

Er.

Yeah.

Oh, and to luvtink81: If by some cosmic coincidence you are reading this in addition to the honor of letting me influence your music station, let me take this time to say one thing:

I'm sorry.

Especially for rating Bjork so high.