You think that your life is going to be one way, and then, for various reasons or whatever, it doesn't work out.
Hear the birds? Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm deaf and I try to imagine what it's like not to be able to hear them. It's not that bad.
There are lots of nations in the world or national peoples who don't yet have states. They're inside someone else's state and they want a state of their own.