What Brings Us Together?

Something Big: The mountains are calling
Every time I walk out my front door I look up at the mountains. Whether they're covered in a white blanket, glowing under sunset rays, or basking in the midday sunlight, I can't get enough. It becomes almost a staring contest because I think that the longer I look the more I'll be able to comprehend their grandeur and beauty. The fact that something so indescribably beautiful can exist baffles me. I will stare at the mountains for twenty minutes straight, and I still can't wrap my head around it. They don't look real to me, they look like romanticized scenes from a painting. I just can't understand how the earth can be so beautiful or what humans have done to deserve something so magnificent.

Something Broken: What brings us together?
I know that marriage is all the hype in life, but I just don't really understand what the point is. If anything else had only a 50% success rate, nobody would do it. If love leads people to get married, then where does that go? If two people truly love each other in a marriage, then how do they get to the point of walking away? I guess I'm with Haddaway in asking, "What is love?" If it's this all-powerful emotion that can change the world, why can't it keep people together and happy? And also, why does everyone push marriage when you only have a 50/50 chance of ending up happy in the end?

Something Artistic or Man-Made: The sound of music
Something so obvious yet so perplexing. Notes, chords, harmonies, instruments--how is it that these can have such an effect on our emotions? I can be feeling completely as I describe in the "Something Broken" section above, but throw on "Livin' For You" by Boston, and within minutes you have me borderline crying and fantasizing about love and romance. It's beyond my understanding; it has the power to reach people from all walks of life and experience. You can have a group of a hundred people with different stories, interests, background, careers, but when "Sugar We're Goin' Down" by Fall Out Boy starts playing, you will never see a more united group of people for those three and a half minutes.

Something Mysterious: Missing Someone
Five years ago, my family suffered the loss of my dad. It was hard, but people told me it would get better. Five years later, and I don't think it's gotten better; it's just gotten normal. When I think about the pain, it feels just as strong and overwhelming as it did back then. I'm just used to it now. The human heart has such phenomenal strength to overcome, but it seems that the pain of missing someone who has died is something that the heart can't overcome. How is it that in the midst of this pain you can feel so overwhelmed that you feel like you might die, but continue to go on?