Last time I drove regularly I had three options: FM radio, AM radio and a CD player. I would move between them depending on the drive, the trip, the feeling, the attitude – to use a Burkean word. I felt like I should be able to find something good I’d want to hear in my driving days.

Driving back and forth between Rochester and Syracuse, both in upstate New York, both in pretty much a straight line on the New York State Thruway from one another, I found myself having to adapt to the trip more than I would have liked. Mostly it’s because the song was not what I wanted to hear. Or it was a song that transported me somewhere – regret, decision, or wonder. Not where I wanted to be in my drive at all. Music has that power to take us elsewhere, without consent.

Some days no song was good enough, no radio talk interesting enough. Sometimes all my CDs didn’t have the song I wanted – what song did I want? Well, not any of these. Sometimes I was just tired and kept the radio on low, tolerating or enjoying whatever the mass-market music station played. I would listen to Howard Stern complain about the FCC as he prepared to transition to satellite radio. I’d listen to FM pop or AM NPR, and very often, stations that played classical or rock. Most of the time, you have to compromise with what you are hearing – you have to make do.

I put a CD player into my first car, a 1988 Ford Bronco 2, and in my second car I used a tape player adapter which was really great for the iPod, something I acquired in graduate school which was a bad idea at the time.

The iPod felt like total freedom. Thousands of songs were on there, so I could just hit shuffle and go. I would have nobody to blame but myself for the bad songs. After all, I put them all in there. The iPod became a subject, a DJ in the passenger seat from time to time, picking particular songs and particular orders of songs that simply angered me. The iPod was deliberately doing this to me to upset me. Why would it play these songs in this order? Why would it choose to do that?

The iPod also had a sense of humor. I remember driving around with some people that I wanted to impress, that I wanted to not only like me but think I was sophisticated (more than just sophistic, which they already knew). The iPod played the most amazing set. They asked: “What song is this?” “Who is this?” and then “This is incredible!” “What great music!” They all got out of the car, and as I started to drive away, the iPod chose to play the Johnny Cage Song from the Mortal Kombat soundtrack. Not the film mind you, the CD you could get by mailing off for it to an address that would appear on the video game screen between games. I dodged a bullet with that one and laughed a lot.

Now I have a car again, and I drive occasionally to Queens from distant Long Island. It’s quite the haul, so I’m glad I only have to do it a few times a semester. But now I have a smartphone and Spotify. Now it is possible to listen to virtually any music in the world that has ever been recorded.

This changes everything. The element of surprise or shock has been bleached by a perfect playlist, soundtrack, collection of hits, collection of albums, whatever I like. Spotify even has it’s own AI DJ, that will talk to you and play songs that it knows you won’t hate. It’s almost good enough to play only songs you like (maybe in a few more months). Soon, it will play songs you don’t know that you will love. We all become those friends in my car – “Who is this? This music is amazing, what a playlist!” But who are we praising? Ourselves? Spotify? Some kind of AI subject?

The danger is real though – no longer will one be driving and be reminded of that ex, that moment in life you’d forgotten, that embarrassing time at the dance or the bar – unless you really want that memory. The radio and the burned CD, or commercial CD that you forgot was in your car player, has the advantage of pushing you around through time as you commute around in your car. You are able to remember without willing it, feel things you haven’t in a long time, and wonder about other people who are now distant in your life. In short, you are forced to adapt your attitude based on the context that comes at you, without preparation or warning.

It’s great to think through a time a song reminds you of when you aren’t doing that much on the road. It also makes you think of things you might want to do later in the day with your free time, after your errands are done. It might make you want to reach out to someone as well.

Spotify erases all possibilities, it’s too perfect. You’ll only get what you want, and you can’t even complain about the limitless selection. I think Amazon Music is equally as good. Both are terrible in the car. It’s not good mind work to be paralyzed by what good song you’d like to hear. You don’t have to adapt anything, tolerate anything – you can skip tracks until you die (or your credit card declines).

Is this the future? Are all interstitial spaces going to be bespoke, crafted moments that we can’t possibly be frustrated with? Will there be no more boredom, downtime, practice tolerating what we don’t care for? What does that do for democratic systems? More importantly, what does that do to our ability to learn and grow? As the Tibetan Buddhists say, everything you encounter is your difficult teacher. Can a teacher really and truly offer anything you want to hear? Or would they be fired? Or unethical?

I also have an XM receiver in my car and that seems like some good methadone for what I miss, or what I need. But the sheer number of stations – many of which are dedicated to just one artist- suggests that we are all in for a perfectly curated, perfectly smooth experience when in transit. AI will be sure of that. What happens when Spotify and Sirius XM get a hold of your biodata from your watch? Can your respiration or pulse indicate what should or should not be playing?