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“The thing about a spiral is, if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. It just keeps tightening, infinitely.” This proves my point that it's a choice to follow the spiral inwards. If you follow it inwards then it gets tighter, but if you follow it outwards, it becomes bigger. It's all up to the person if they want to follow it inwards or outwards, its all a matter of choice, all a matter of how you want to live your life.

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"When my thoughts spiraled, I was in the spiral, and of it." This is evidence that she let her thoughts control her and put her into the spiral. She could've chosen to do something she loved to do in order to pull her out of the spiral, but she chose not to do anything about it and it pulled her in, constricting her.

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This picture shows us that if someone chooses to go down the spiral (or the tower) all they will be met with is a turtle. These turtles could represent many things, one of them such being hopelessness. But if you go up the spiral (or the tower) someone would see that the world isn't hopeless, its just that when you constrict yourself down the bottom of either, it get harder and harder to see the top, making it more difficult to climb either of them. But it's up to the person if they want to climb up to the top, that's where the choice can be made.

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"Wild Sound" by Glenn Kotche

This piece starts out with someone alone at the bottom of the spiral, but soon they find someone else. These two start to climb up the spiral, and they eventually meet more people that help them climb up the spiral, they keep going despite what has been stacked against them and are able to reach the open space of the spiral and sadly part ways.

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"Torched and Wrecked" by David Skidmore supports my theme because this piece seems very chaotic at the beginning, something struggling to get out of this tight tight spiral of chaos. But as the piece develops, something changes, it stops trying to get out. It seems to sit there and let the chaos surround them. They sit, falling deeper and deeper into this spiral until they can't fall any deeper, the rock bottom. This is symbolized when the piece just stops, without any warning.

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"Fractalia," by Owen Condon supports my theme by again, starting out at the top of the spiral, and descending down as the cortet becomes more drummy. These drums make a sound that seems like an unwavering wall around the spiral that is impossible to climb up and out of. But as the keyboards start to join, it seems like they are able to climb out of the spiral very slowly, but as the piece progresses. The spiral starts to open and as the piece suddenly stops, they have reached the open space of the spiral.

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"Land," by Takatsugu Muramatsu supports my theme because of how it starts off very light and unrestricted, at the top of the spiral and the keyboard. As the solo progresses however, it seems to fall into and out of the spiral as it runs up and down the keyboard determined to stay at the top. Even at its all time low, it is able to keep going without loosing itself and it able to resurface completely at the end of the solo.

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"Yellow After the Rain" by Mitchell Peters is supportive of the theme because of how it starts off more simplistic and gains more complexity as the solo progresses. As it gains complexity, it shifts from a lighter to a heavier tone, as it slowly goes down the spiral as it constricts itself more and more, causing the piece to end as it runs out of breath.

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"Rain Dance," by Alice Gomez is a supporter of this theme. This is because it starts off at its prime, it starts off at the top of the spiral. But as the music progresses, it seems to slowly fall in the spiral. Near the end, it is very slow and surreal, kind of sad, sad that it fell from the top. But at the very end, it seems to lay down at the bottom. It wants to climb back up to the top, but it seems that it doesn't have the energy to stay up there anymore. Almost like it chooses not to go back up to the top.

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This is the picture of the spiral of life that is referenced in the theme. This shows us that the further down the spiral we go, the less options that we see are available, but the more out we go, the less constricted and restricted we feel with all the things that are available. We can walk either way on this spiral that we call life, just like in the picture, its just that we need to choose which way that we want to go.

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"Conflicting Ideas - A Marimba Duet," is a good example of the theme. This supports it because the piece starts off with very harsh sounding chords, and as the piece progresses. The two people start working together. The beginning starts off downward in the spiral, with the rhythms all fast and condensed. But by the end, the two parts have started to warm up to each other's differences and start to work their way up the spiral by choice. Spreading the rhythms out as the spiral opens up to allow more space.

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"Mercury" from the planets is a connection to this theme. In the music, there are lots of interjections and suddenly loud moments and peaceful moments, as well as it moves very fast. This is very similar to life, how fast it moves and how there are up and down moments. But dispute the loud almost chaotic moments, it seems to almost have a lifting atmosphere, as it goes up the spiral of life instead of being heavy and constricting itself into the downward spiral.

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The theme in "Turtles all the Way Down," is that life may be a never ending spiral, but it's up to you if you want to go down forever, or up forever. This is the theme because the author constantly references this spiral. Aza, the main character, has a mental health condition and cannot rise up in this spiral. She talks about how it feels like the spiral is constricting her as she goes down, but later in the book she realizes that the spiral also goes up. This is shown when she says "... I realized something Davis must have already known: Spirals grow infinitely small the farther you follow them inward, but they also grow infinitely large the farther you follow them out." After this point, Aza makes a better attempt to fight her "demons" and go up the spiral instead of inward.