A New Self
A man lies in his bed in a room with no door, He waits hoping for a presence, something, anything, to enter. After spending half his life searching, he still felt as blank as the ceiling at which he stared, he is alive, but feels absolutely nothing.
So is he?
When he was six he believed that the moon over head followed him, By nine he had deciphered the allusion, trading magic for fact, no trade backs. So this is what it's like to be an adult, if he only knew now what he knew then.
Lying sideways atop crumpled sheets with no covers, he decides to dream... dream up a new self for himself.
Pearl Jam, 'Im Open'
Comments
descartes famously answered this with, 'i think therefore i am'.
>> trading magic for facts, no trade backs.
there is an implicit equation of mystery with innocence. i feel that one can only make this assertion in ignorance. anybody who has strived to gain beyond superficial knowledge has realized that the more we know, the more we don't know.
mc gee puts it well (excerpt):
"I began with the simple notion of learning as expanding your circle of knowledge and quickly hit on the notion that expanding my circle of knowledge was simultaneously expanding the boundaries of my ignorance. The more things I learned, the more things I became aware of that I didn’t know."
yes the trade is irreversible; innocence once lost cannot be regained. however, when we trade a mystery for a fact, we uncover a dozen new mysteries previously unbeknown to us.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
The reason i like this song is because it defines my life for me. I can actually relate to the moment when i believed that the moon followed me... Sometimes, we all know that what we believe in doesn't make sense at all, but our innocence, our 'faith' in fantasies makes us able to actually have those dreams. & then, there is a time when barbie dolls don't fascinate you that much, you know that Cinderella was just a girl in a tale, and little mermaids don't exist.
And then, there are times when you are forced to compare your lives with the lives of others who started with you. And you know that you weren't able to do all the things you set out for, that is the time when you crumble yourself under a sheet and think of a new self for your self...
Guess im rambling now... :)
i understand your sense of loss upon discovering that the moon didn't revolve around you. If I try hard enough I can even relate, in some small measure, to your disappointment at the fact that barbies are no longer fascinating to you and cinderella and mermaids are imaginary.
however, i don't see this disappointment taking possession of you, and this is my point, unless all the facts of life were revealed to you at once. so you learned that cinderella and the mermaids are not real. okay. didn't you also learn around the same time, for example, that people didn't always say what they mean? isn't that a mystery? isn't it fascinating? or even the realization that all the heavenly bodies weren't simply adorning the night sky to look down upon you, didn't reveal a greater, more fascinating mystery? if they weren't following you, why were they out there?
this is not a probe into your personal life. i am simply advancing illustrative counter questions while struggling to understand "pearl jam" and yourself.
But that is all just an extension of what i gather from the song. Its just a feeling, that you can relate to. Its just a moment that makes you feel that way. Its the moment when you dont look beyond that.
I wasn’t trying to give an impression that you discredited my thoughts. We are just looking in different directions. You are outside the box, i am inside out.