Why do we listen to music?  Experts say, “The human brain likes to have some kind of sensory stimulation, even so much as to have an addiction because of it.”  There is also some kind of connection on an emotional level, which experts have a harder time explaining.  But how do we choose which ones we like?  Do we prefer that energy that it gives us? The one where we want to go punch a bear in the throat just to see what it feels like?  Where you climb a mountain, kill a giant, then eat a whole box of altoids at once, plus the box?  Or do we like the ones that make us want to prance through a meadow riding a deer, saying, “howdy ho!” and filled with feelings and love and flowers and then run up the mountain just for fun, befriend the giant, build a house made of grass, have him be your neighbour, and then have your kids play together?  Your personality may determine the music you like, but the music you listen to may also alter your personality.  Either way, there is a direct relationship between the music and the personality of the user.  Personally, I like any type of music that gives me that cold electric feeling starting at the back of your skull that travels down your body, going farther the stronger the grip the music has on you, leaving goosebumps to wherever it managed to get to.  Those times when I listen and go, “Woah!  This is the greatest song ever!” and then I proceed to listen to it 15  more times in a row instead of doing my homework.  Since those moments happen on a per song basis, with no real genre to reflect it, it makes it a real pain when someone asks me my favorite genre of music.  I can say I don’t like country or rap, but that’s the only thing I know when it comes to the genre.  Why do we have to group them a certain way anyway?  Why not just have them be music and let people decide what they like, then use a genius playlist to recommend others they might enjoy?  Regardless, perhaps those skull chills that give me the flesh of a freshly plucked bird are the only reasons I listen to music, and maybe because they reflect my personality so well as to be a mirror.  In my normal life, I go about business as usual, just trying to be me, (who probably really isn’t that good a person to begin with) but when it counts, my demeanor can change as fast as the electrical impulses in my brain can tell me to.  My personality will have an entirely different feel to it, much like those moments in the song that make me goose-bumpy.

  A good example of this was October 4th, 2014, when I was at a 300 spartan warriors-themed campout.  I have these great weapons made of PVC pipe and foam core, and I brought them.  I was practicing my swordsmanship against someone of much less skill than myself, not a care in the world.  Then one of the new scouts came over and told me he had an issue, and I felt inclined to ignore him.  Obviously the swords were more important.  He told me it was serious, and I literally felt something shift in my head.  Not metaphorically literally, like when a teenage girl says she’s literally going to die if someone talks again, but literally literally.  You could say that I imagined it, but the brain is a powerful thing.  Allow me to explain something: as one of the main values in Boy Scouts, the scouts themselves are the ones who mainly run the whole show.  I’m sixteen, so I was the oldest one there, (the leader was out buying food, somehow it wasn’t predetermined who would get it) and I’ve played big brother for the younger scouts for so long it was essentially second nature.  You could call it parental instinct, like how a brain is hard-wired to wake up to the sound of a baby crying, so I’m going to say I literally felt something in my head.  It was like one door opened and another one closed.  I turned deadly serious, turned toward him, and caught the sword that was being swung at me without even looking.  I felt strong too.  And fast.  If someone were to walk up behind me and break a branch, I’d swing first and ask questions after I realized that I just swung and knocked a guy out cold.  The younger scout (who is about eleven) told me that when he was in the bathroom someone who wasn’t even a scout (probably 14-15 age) had slammed him against a wall and offered him drugs.  Some kind of quiet, nagging doubt in the back of my head tried to make an appearance, but it was silenced quickly by maternal instinct.  I figured that the kid was just some idiot who had gotten them from his older brother or something, but like those moments in music, things got intense.  I suddenly got really energized, extremely protective, and ready to kick some ar*e.  Now flash back a second.  I was at the age of thirteen, in health class, learning for the hundredth time about the fun world of how one plus one doesn’t always equal two, but how it more likely equals three.  Class was about to end, and I started to do that ‘end of the class sigh’ thing, and I gasped.  I suddenly couldn’t get enough air.  This of course made me freak out, seeing as I think suffocation is one of the worst ways to die, and it created more anxiety.  I then proceeded to go into a anxiety-induced panic attack.  It felt like something was squeezing my lungs, and no matter how much I filled my lungs, I felt no satisfaction in breathing.  This bothered me for a while.  The desperation I felt during that 3-month period changed my view of things, and afterward I decided without really saying it that I never wanted anyone to have to feel as desperate as I felt then if I could do something to change it.  We actually sent me out to the bathroom to see if I could find those kids, (apparently they were short, small, and wearing all black, and I was ready to defend myself) and I did see some kids running away from the bathroom into the woods who fit the description.  We never saw those kids again on the campout, but I was prepared.  No, I wasn’t going to beat them up, just talk to them, but I was secretly hoping one of them would take a swing at me.  Moments like these happen from time to time, like in the music, and I believe that these are the moments that define me, in the way that those moments define the song.  Much like bravery, which isn’t being fearless, but having the ability to act in the midst of fear when all you want to do is cower.  Much like maturity, you should be judged based on your ability to act in a serious situation, not how you act to have a good time.  You’re not immature if you pull a prank at a party, but you are if someone is choking on the ground.  I can be many different people when the situation calls for it, so some only know the serious side, some only know the fun side, and very few know both,and only those who I have had shared danger with.  I guess I’m wired this way because I like to have fun, fun can be risky, and risky can lead to injury, so I know how to act in a crisis since I was little.  My friends know me as the awkward kid who makes bad jokes and passive innuendos.  They have never met the me who would be the first to react if some crazy guy drew a gun, pointed it at us, and said, “Choose…”.  I don’t have MPD, we can assure you of that, but I do have different sides that I can activate at will.  The only thing they really share are a body and their taste in music.