Would you trade it all? -- One Thing (Finger 11)
Click to viewThis song expresses a common theme for those of us from these modern generations of slackers and earnestly ironic abdicators of a subsuming dystopia, where narcissism and well-insulated frustration may seem the only valid responses.
Inside, I think for most, there is a deep fire, and for most I assume their awareness revisits it like tongue-worrying a tooth, a private passion play. It is a secret archetype that doesn't quite inspire real external effort to go against the culture, but there are moments that fire must break through.
In this song, I admire the courage of how it admits to its own conceits ("Yeah, I guess I know, I just hate how it sounds").
What is worth pursuing with passion? What if your whole life was a well-constructed attempt to make the best of what you thought possible (or were willing to allow), and then you felt a shift to take an entirely new direction, or had one thrust upon you that you could take or walk away from? What does that make of the meaning of your life so far? What does it take to have the courage to risk something you have never done and for which you have no map?
I have debated with others whether this song refers to an unplanned pregnancy, or admitting to a different sexual orientation, or a compelling opportunity for adultery (or divorce for another), it could be, or anything that asks a person to step up and live into it. Whether it is an actual choice pounding on your door, or a chronic dream that whispers its madness, "find me. . .make me real."
Sometimes when I think people complain about life being too disconnected, they are just unpracticed at reaching past the typical self-absorption of our culture and really connecting with the people and possibilities around them. But it can be done.