We live in a stereotyped society; a society that promotes you to be ‘different', as long as you go along with the public opinion. What is ‘public opinion' and why do we need to follow it all the time? I had read somewhere in a Greek philosophy book about the ‘tyranny of the majority' and I found it totally correct. We say in many cases, the majority ‘wins', but what about that certain minority's opinion? Where does it go? Humans are introduced to the stereotypes of society; from the day they are born. They accept them at early age and then consequently are addicted to them. Later on they enter a comfort zone, where all is settled. All is well. Most of the times they are not even themselves, because they have got to be that type of person that is conformed to all rules of society. You begin your school life. Lack of originality… At school you have to be the student who is responsible and disciplined. You start learning all the cliché phrases… “The tomatoes are ripe The sea is turbulent The truth is hard Respect is gained Justice is blind” If you start writing essays which express extreme way of thinking or do not conform to the general opinion, you are marginalized. There goes your freedom of expression. Follow the rules. People love stereotypes. They know they are easier to handle. No need to search for something more. Once a woman says ‘I don't want to be a housewife, she will face discountenance. Who said you have to be one? Who ordered this definition of your identity? Why do we follow society's norms? There is no stereotype. You were born free to be whoever you were intended to be. You are born to be original. Maybe you were intended to be: Wild as the wind in a desert Free as a spirit An idea A concept An illusion Or a Bird who flies to the unknown skies A hobo soul A traveler that needs no compass You do not fit into other people's molds Birds don't care about stereotypes Show me your arguments for a stereotypical life.

Have you ever wondered what it's like to have four or five, or maybe more, songs stuck in your head? Imagine having that many people crammed into a small room and all desperately vying for your attention. Now imagine that, in a classroom, when you really want to sing so they leave you alone. But you can't, because a) you'd look like a total weirdo and b) there are other people trying to focus. That's an average day for me. Music is a big part of my family's culture, and it has a lot of meaning for me even beyond that. I think about this a lot: what if we could use music as a tool to connect with people? What if we could use it to tell stories and bring communities together? Growing up, my dad was a music enthusiast. We're a big family - eight kids, all from the same parents - so we made a lot of dishes at dinner. We live in an old farmhouse with no dishwasher, so at the end of the day, we'd all clean the kitchen and do the dishes together. This was in the days before Spotify and iTunes, back in the mid-2000s to early-2010s so if we wanted music, we had to sing. And sing we did. My dad would lead the melody and my sisters would sing harmony and to my eight-year-old ears, there was nothing more beautiful. The world was at its brightest when we were singing together. It made - actually, still makes - you feel like you're part of something greater than the sum of its parts. Even before I was born, my family was musical. So much so that I began to recognize certain songs in the womb, and to put me to bed when I was little, you had to sing "One Hand On The Radio" by Aengus Finnan or I wouldn't sleep. I'm seventeen now. I'm going to be a part of the senior music class, studying in-depth music theory and refining our skills on our chosen instruments - the flute, for me. This class has reinforced what my childhood led me to believe: when you're involved in music, you become part of a greater whole, on two levels. The first level is the local community. I've met some amazing people through music, people that otherwise I'd have no way of knowing. It draws strangers together, with all different strengths and weaknesses, and helps them overcome their failings to create art. Painters use pigments to decorate space, but musicians use sound to decorate time. Being part of that is a spectacular feeling, but one that's quite impossible to describe to someone who hasn't felt it before. The second level is the global community. Just about everyone I know has at least a superficial appreciation for music in some form. If you showed someone from the other side of the world a classical piece like Vivaldi's Four Seasons or Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, they'd have a hard time denying that it's beautiful music. Even if you think it's boring, you can certainly appreciate the skill required to play the pieces. This is true for many other forms of music too, not just classical. Music is a community thing and it's meant to be shared. I could go to Europe or the Middle East or Africa and find another musician to play with, regardless of lingual, cultural, or social differences and perform a piece with them. As long as we can both read music, we can let go of the barriers of society. As a musician, I'm not constrained like others are. My art form allows me a certain kind of freedom and a crazy connection to others that can't be taken away from me. You can't unlearn something, after all. So whether you just listen to music when it plays on the radio or you're a fanatic like me who listens to everything under the sun, remember that music is much more than nicely organized sound. Imagine a scene from your favourite movie, a very emotional one. Now remove the background music, and you're left with something a little more shallow. Music is the language that communicates beyond words and extends beyond the barriers of language. It is the one thing that can speak to anyone no matter where you are or what your culture is. It's the universal language and using it, we can connect with all kinds of people. And in a world that's so divided, so disjointed, couldn't we use a little more unity?