This is a Metaphorical Mirror

The ACT reading sections always have interesting articles that end up engrossing me in the content, making me forget to maintain an analytical mindset while "skimming through." I end up running out of time sometimes, not because the questions stump me, but because I want to absorb every sentence, at times even re-reading a paragraph since the first impression ends up being so great that it requires a second impression just to handle it. The SAT on the other hand is a bit more of a struggle to get through. The creators so incredibly aware that the topic of wetlands bores the living crap out of high-schoolers that they make it a point to sneak it in as the last prompt of reading on every other test. The final eleven questions, the final stretch of the race, just end up being the toughest drudge of the whole test, like we are marching through a thick sludgy marsh, with the muck absorbing and suffocating 455x the willpower that I used for the previous reading prompts and could...

It's ironic that we perceive our surroundings in color when color doesn't exist. It's just the result of our brains trying to interpret the reflected wavelengths of light- how that translates to color, God only knows. When lights dim, the colors around us change, and when the light is off completely, everything becomes a dark neutral color. In fact, it could be argued that everything loses its color since there's no light being reflected and black is a shade. I once heard this theory mentioning that what may be one color to someone may be a totally different color to someone else, but the colors are labeled as one. For instance, my blue may be your green, but we both call it blue. Now here's a weird idea- what if my entire set of colors are completely different from yours? Could each person have an individual set of colors that everyone else can't see? Later, I heard about color-healing: a method using colors to generate or degenerate feelings and health iss...

The theme of reliving the past is present in Gatsby, Maus, and Song of Solomon. It reminded me of the song by Tame Impala called "It Feels Like We Only Go Backwards."  Here are the lyrics to the chorus: "It feels like I only go backwards, baby Every part of me says "go ahead". I got my hopes up again, oh no... not again.  Feels like we only go backwards, darling." This song talks about being in love with a girl who doesn't seem to reciprocate, so the guy is always making less progress when he tries to make any when it comes to starting something real with her. Other Tame Impala songs are more complex with chords and the style of their songs in general, but this one in comparison is simple. It repeats the same four chords over and over again, reflecting the idea of being in this endless cycle of going backwards. The chorus repeats itself 5 times over the course of the song, leaving room for only two short verses with different lyrics. ...

The world revolves around reward. Not the sun, but reward. Behind every change in mindset, every individual stroke of effort, every desired objective, it's all a result of the underlying crave for reward. It's a biological trait- we do things or don't do things to either obtain a profit or avoid a consequence. Psychologist- sorry, behaviorist- B.F. Skinner backs me up on this; he even takes it so far as to say that operant conditioning* is what shapes our individual minds.  When I say reward, I'm talking about anything as simple as getting a euphoric feeling or approval from someone to something as tangible as money.  The biggest and most obvious reward the world has come to be built upon is money. People get this weird idea that some rectangular green paper will magically buy them happiness, and the more that they get, then more happiness they will earn. Then people like Tom Buchanan or Jay Gatsby go around flaunting their wealth to earn the approval of certai...