There exists a single reality, that much is certain. What this reality is and what it holds however, is what mankind is always trying to find out. It hasn’t been an easy task though, especially because there’s really no sure way of knowing if we are correct or not. What we have instead are our observations and interpretations of what we think reality is and it may or may not actually correspond with reality.

We have observations and experiences, but those will always be somewhat biased if only for the fact that our minds cannot truly comprehend every single variable and action, every existing circumstance that led to our observation. We also have the method of using pure, analytical thought in order to get to know reality, but in the end, there’s no way to know if you hit the mark or not, or at least no way I’ve ever heard of or know about.

At best, we can theorize and we somewhat have the capacity to weed out some of these theories based on how it holds up in what we think reality is. Some of these theories have held true for many, many years. But it only seems that way. There’s no known way to confirm that it pertains to reality for yourself, much less share these findings with other people.

For example, we still don’t know for certain what death really is. At best, we know that there is a process that we call death, but without knowing what happens afterward, we cannot really even begin to define what death is. We can say for certain that cold is the absence of heat because we can observe what happens when heat is gone and so we have labeled that phenomena as cold. But we can’t say that death is the absence of life because we don’t know if there truly is life after death or not.

That doesn’t mean we can’t try to get to know reality anyways, after all, most humans seem to have a need of something to strive for anyways.

When one thinks, that thinking usually comes with a decision being made. To make a decision implies that a judgement has been made and in most cases, no further thought is given. Now once a judgement has been solidified in your mind, it is very difficult to change it whether it be the best judgement or not. This is not a form of rational, logical thinking.

To think rationally, you must first be able to see the object of thought as it is and not what you think it might be or what you want it to be but rather what it is and nothing more. In order to do this, you must not-think. See the object, observe it, dwell on it, but do not apply any thought or give any judgement or preference or opinion. This is the art of not-thinking. The object’s true essence shows itself when you are not-thinking and it is only when you know its essence, its form, can you begin to think rationally of it and to think rationally of it is to come to understand it.

But without knowing its essence, it cannot be said that you understand the object. Judgements and decisions should not be made before understanding the object. Opinions are only made because you don’t understand it, but in order to understand, you must first not-think.

Recently while using the Internet, I came across several (unrelated) comments on the subject of inheritance, heritage, and other things that are handed down through families. The general viewpoint of the comments that interested me basically said, “A person does not deserve to receive something merely because they happened to have been born to that particular family.”

Now this type of viewpoint to me implies that it is not fair that a certain person receives an inheritance (or something similar) because they were the ones with the luck to have been born to that family and not someone else.

As with all things that relate to luck, it’s perfectly valid to argue if something is fair or not as that has to do with favorable or unfavorable odds. It is essentially a gamble that everybody takes before being born and only a few truly hit the jackpot because not everybody would have the same luck. With this viewpoint, one could argue that that is simply unfair.

However, the roll of the dice, as one might say, only applies to the one being born. How about from the point of view of the parents who decided to have that child? There’s no luck involving childbirth (barring things like healthiness which doesn’t have any relevance to the argument) because either the couple had a child or they did not. The parents can give their child whatever they want because it is their child. There’s no room for what’s fair or not here.

For someone to say that the child does not deserve whatever their parents might wish to give them on the grounds that the child could’ve been anybody is being outright disrespectful to the parents and their decision to have that child.

In a story I read recently, there were these two men who were born and bred specifically to take part of a sort of test along with many others who were born and bred to do the same. In this test, failure meant death and as such, many of their friends had died and the men themselves had become traumatized by the whole experience. When asked about this experience from someone else, the outsider asked them, “Why didn’t you just not take part of the test?” Turns out that the two men had never even considered that as an option and attempted to justify it by saying that they never really had a choice.

The fact of the matter is is that there was a choice, they had only been trained to not see it.

There can be many situations throughout your life in which it may seem as if you have no choice in the matter, no choice but to go with the flow, to uphold the status-quo, whatever, but that’s not true. If it were, we may as well be ants living in a colony we call Earth. It’s strange how in general the more life-changing a decision is, the less control we actually have over it. With a few exceptions, the reason for this is because you have not been taught to see another way.

You are limited by your own mindset, your way of thinking, your worldview, but this can continue to change and hopefully improve as you get older and learn more or it can come to a standstill and be frozen. It can either be changing or it cannot be changing.

The two men from the story had a specific and most importantly, unchanging worldview and as a result, could not even begin to conceive anything that fell outside of it.

When we are able to know exactly where a choice came from is when your worldview can change. When we are able to make choices that didn’t seem to be an option at all is when your way of thinking can change. When you are the one in control of your choices is when your mindset changes.

When your mindset changes, you will be able to see things in a different and hopefully better light.

In every single song, there exists two basic structures. They are the cyclical and narrative structures. What these structures are are essentially the way the song evolves over time, what part of the song is the central focus as well as its use of repeating phrases.

The cyclical structure is the most well-known do to its use in most club, pop, and rock music although not limited to them. It is the quintessential verse-chorus structure that we all know. The main focus of this song is the chorus and the entire song revolves around it in its build-up, its hook, even its bridge and/or interlude. Some songs even finish with the chorus. Repetition is used to increase the spotlight on the chorus even more. The chorus is usually simple, or at least simple enough so just about anybody can figure it out and possible sing along to it after hearing it only once. If no other part of the song, people know the chorus first and foremost.

Songs with a cyclical structure tend to not be very good at telling stories as the song invariably returns to the chorus and the lyrics in said chorus only very rarely change. These kind of songs can only act as sort of slogans in which at most a few phrases are often repeated. The music itself is the same. Every other part of the song has to be able to at least flow into the chorus or continue it otherwise it wouldn’t sound right.

The narrative structure is not the opposite of the cyclical structure except in a few parts. A song with a narrative structure does not have a specific focus on any phrase or part of a song but is rather meant to be taken as a whole. It may or may not use repetition but only as a means to further the song along rather than to focus attention to it. Songs with a narrative structure are also in general harder to remember as a result and will usually require multiple listenings in order to “figure” it out.

Because of the narrative structure, it tends to be better at telling stories as its name implies. As the story being told changes, so does the music. As such, there is no equivalent to a chorus in this kind of structure. Classical music as a whole tends to use this structure extensively as does some types of electronic although as usual it is not solely limited to these examples.

Keep in mind that a song does not have to be either or. It is possible for a type of hybrid structure to exist for example, a song can be cyclical as a whole but within each cycle, it has a narrative structure such as a song always returning to a chorus but the phrases between the choruses are different. Songs with markings of both structures tend to be of longer duration however or at least long enough for each structure to be defined.