A Slow Descent Into Reality
I. Everyman
I had arrived in life
No one would disagree
I lived the dream
Behold the wonders
Born from deep inside of me
And so it seemed
Come and recognize
The poster child
For Human Enterprise
But to my world came
The winds of consequence
A compromise
Of friends that riches make
Had vanished at a glance
Before my eyes
As history has told
Kingdoms rise
As easily as they fold
So I climbed my tower high (oh)
And I screamed into the sky (oh)
And with nothing left
I thought of letting go
Just letting go...
II. A Slow Descent
From the void, from the womb
A new world of all-sense and need
At the breast, as it's given, withdrawn
So is sown the seed
With perennial eyesight
I stretch into the day
As the child with the world
Set before in the ever-now
As a youth in all truth
Never when, where or even how
Left to government graces
Then cast into the void
Will I be destroyed
Or will I then succeed
Bold ideals, aspirations
I venture into my time
Am I pretty, am I strong,
So we long, so the world defines
Should I find it a wonder
That pleasures do unfold
And pride fill the soul
So they steal it away
Endless cycles, sensations
Relations had I employed
At the end such frustration
All emptiness fills the void
And with stardom and fortune
Ends with boredom high
Vainglory disguising
The Prince of Remains
Pharmacia, academia
I strove for a higher plane
But for all my achievements
This one question still remained:
Of the Human Condition
If I'm the one in need
Then how can it be
That I am also the Means
III. Wisdom of the Age
Preach the Prophets of Man:
He is Good Fundamentally
Asked the convict, who laughed
And drew close just to say to me:
Ne Plus Ultra, we strive for the line
But each step is divided in time
In the ashes of war
Is our selfsame repartee
Meaningless, meaningless, vain
Says the teacher, and could it be
Just lie there as a rock
And roll to everything, or
Rise to virtuous standards,
I'm told
I'm OK, you're OK,
Is M.O.
But the vast of my past
Says alas, that I can not hold
IV. Honest To Me
If standards I conceive
Then I consider to possess
Then all that I've achieved
Is absolute self-righteousness
I cannot give something
That I myself don't truly own
No random act of kindness
Or cause-project can save my soul
Espoused utopias rooted in
The Brotherhood of Man
Are doomed to crumble under
The weight of imperfection
V. The Battle Within
Soma, Psyche, Pneuma... Deus
There must be something beyond Me!
VI. Anyman
I used to seek for life in my ambition
But this had left me in a dark condition
And now I see
The creature can't transcend
The nature of the man
The Truth is found
Where all my strivings end
So I laid my banner down (oh)
And I knelt low to the ground (oh)
For I knew that it was time for letting go
Just letting go