Metaphor from Music

This is lame and completely non-poetic. But I don’t care. It relates to what I’ve been experiencing.

Usually when I listen to an album for the first time I choose a random song based on the title and listen to it.

Most of the time I hate the song.

But I know that by choosing a random song completely out of order, I’ve ruined it for myself. It’s my fault I don’t like it.

So usually I’ll continue to preview the songs based on interesting titles until I find something I like. Then I’ll probably listen to that song over and over until I recognize the lyrics, and then I’ll find one I like almost as much and do the same thing, and then I start to like the songs that come on right after my most favorites because I get used to them starting up right after the best ones. Then, eventually, I like most of the songs on the album, and by now I’m convinced I really do like the band, so I begin listening to all of the tracks in a certain order, and maybe even by the time it’s all finished I listen to all of the tracks in their right order.

And this is when I really start to appreciate the story the album tells as a whole. The songs are pieces of a larger work of art. They each have a flavor that compliments or contrasts with the others to make the bigger picture. And if it really is a good album, each does not and can not reach its full potential without the others. It only makes the most sense in its original context. There may even be songs on the album I don’t like at all by themselves, but when I understand them in the context, in the flow of the story, I begin to see that they are necessary. That although they are unpleasant for a time, they are necessary to the bigger picture and someday in the future will probably bring me great joy. I end up loving the songs I once hated because I become clued in to the masterful artwork behind them. I start recognizing the genius. But only in context.

And then I can start to appreciate the richness of variety and the depth of the ups and downs. Every song is different. And it fits differently into every album. They can never be swapped or copied. They capture and describe and express totally uniquely.

Anyway, I’m sure you get the point by now. It’s a lot like life.

It always sounds so cheesy when people tell you that the hard times are there for a reason, that you’ll understand why later.

But I think it really goes even deeper than that. I think the hard moments, days, months, years become indispensible parts of who we are. They aren’t some mass produced item sprinkled in various amounts throughout everyone’s lives the way that a lot of people make them sound—generic, straight off the assembly line. Every person has their own unique set. In fact, they can’t even really be pulled out of the bigger story at all and make any kind of sense. Each is different. And each of us is who we are because of them.

Our souls bear the signature marks—or scars—of our stories and even those hellish moments are beautiful, deep, rich parts of the story. It helps me to look back on those times or even to be in the middle of them and think of them as just what they are—hard times.

I don’t have to make excuses for them or live in them. I can simply see them as they are, appreciate them, avoid dwelling on them, and live each time as it comes because it all makes the final work of art more human.