“Warning” by Incubus

Bat your eyes girl.
Be otherworldly.
Count your blessings.
Seduce a stranger.
What’s so wrong with being happy?
Kudos to those who see through sickness…yeah

Over and over and over and over………..

She woke in the morning.
She knew that her life had passed her by
She called out a warning.
Don’t ever let life pass you by.

I suggest we
Learn to love ourselves,
Before its made illegal
When will we learn, When will we change
Just in time to see it all come down

Those left standing will make millions
Writing books on the way it should have been

She woke in the morning.
She knew that her life had passed her by
She called out a warning.
Don’t ever let life pass you by.

Floating in this cosmic Jacuzzi
We are like frogs oblivious
Soon the water starting to boil,
Now I flinched and we all float face down

She woke in the morning.
She knew that her life had passed her by
She called out a warning.
Don’t ever let life pass you by.
Pass you by.

Eighteen is a crappy age to discover that life is passing you by. Maybe in my naive teenager-ness I never realized that maybe it was just adolescent depression. I was fixated on this song for so many years. Amongst many other Incubus lyrics. People may not appreciate their music per se, but the message those tunes carry; is heavy. The wisdom to ‘not let life pass you by’ but instead to jump in and fight for something; anything. My fight, was futile. Something had to change.

“Two weeks without my lover
I’m in this boat alone
Floating down a river named emotion
Will I make it back to shore?
Or drift into the unknown” -excerpt from “Aqueous Transmission (also by Incubus)

Inevitably floating. There was no shore for the rivers I was paddling. Self destructive; like I shoved off without oars, a life vest, or an intention to ever find safe harbor.

I think most people would prefer to focus on happy things whilst paddling through this experience in the world full of rivers with rivers named ‘emotion’. However, there are some of us who delve into the darkness and create a niche there. A quite comfortable one. Some would call it pessimism but I just call it realism. I’m not calling people who blindly stare at the sun and awake completely and blissfully happy everyday morons. Ignorance towards depravity: is bliss.

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