my macbook pro killed itself

My beloved 2018 MacBook Pro shit the bed this morning. It would cost almost $800 to repair it, or I could spend an additional $1,000, and get an iMac (I absolutely cannot drop $3,000 on a new MacBook Pro right now). However, it would have made zero sense to put $800 into a machine I already knew I had to replace within the next year or two.

So, I’m typing this in front of my brand new, 27-inch, PINK iMac.

I nearly had a breakdown until I got the new computer and turned it on, thinking I’d lost all the Logic projects I had open when the thing crashed. It’s taken me ten months to start actually tracking, saving, not deleting, even re-opening projects. I’m fairly certain that losing those files would have been the end of me.

Thankfully, I have everything syncing in iCloud.

I’m proud of myself for having kept my old computer for as long as I did, and if it weren’t for its apparent suicide, I would have kept using it indefinitely. However, getting a new computer feels like a whole new world. I used to pride myself on being an “early adopter,” technologically—always wanting to get my hands on the newest gadget, or the most up-to-date versions of the ones I already owned. I’m terrified for the day one of my old co-workers leaks an infographic about me made by Apple, stating that one of my “greatest passions in life” is AI-assisted accessible technology. Such media does exist, and at the time, was very true. Still is, to a degree.

(I feel the need to chime in here and just inform - AI, as in the term “artificial intelligence” does not only apply to generative-AI, which we all hate with such vitriol [and rightfully so], but refrain from conflating the two here… please. I do not use generative AI, and do not have interest in doing so.)

Most of my childhood was spent sitting at a desk, in the corner of my bedroom, in front of a computer’s monitor. So, honestly… this feels familiar and instinctual in a way I haven’t felt in years. I think I switched to laptops around 11th grade, and now I wish I never had. I still have my ThinkPad for writing, but that’s its own little monster, internet untouched.

Things are easier to navigate when they have a set location. I don’t unplug my audio interface anymore, it just stays plugged into the back of the thing. The speakers are paired, and they just work. There’s no switching of outputs, inputs, adapters - my MIDI controller and my mic are just sitting there, at the ready.

One of my biggest problems is I can be particular, but beyond that, I am aware of this fact. I know the way I like things, and I know the conditions under which I function optimally. This can become a problem because I tend to surround myself with people who have this same struggle and self-understanding, yet are consistently more effective at holding their own ground. I’m a pushover in my quest for love and acceptance, resulting in:

I easily walk away from accommodations I know I need for my optimal survival, if it calls my ease of being tolerated, into question.

For the last couple of years, this self-suicidal behavior led me to a place of having no environment, nor the appropriate tools, which I knew I needed to succeed. This ranges from a handful of physical items, to an array of emotional forms of expression, needs, validations - extending as well to my literal environmental logistics. I made myself as small as humanly possible, nothing like a desktop computer.