Monday, August 23, 2010

WISH YOU WERE HERE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETNrGpxBTQA&feature=related


     Sometimes, I think  the most profound things I have ever seen or heard have been sitting there, waiting, for me to come to a point in my life where it suddenly had meaning to me. That doesn't mean I didn't listen to it before but it didn't have a relevance to me yet, either.  I needed to be able to experience the world around me in a context that was simply unavailable to me at the time. How ironic that something that could have easily been a prophetic warning for my future, instead, found a way of becoming a blunt conformation of that which I was simply too inexperienced or naive to comprehend the first time I heard it. Regret, as well as hindsight, is 20/20. The only difference is that regret has the unfortunate quality of being recognized for what it is and its loss to a self only after it is too late to correct. Maybe this will serve to remind certain people to reassess their surroundings at the midpoint of their epiphanies, rather than at the endpoint where it will do little for them but to confirm their latent company with the misery of others so much like themselves.



So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in a war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here.