Right Where It Belongs
TAG: music lyrics Nine Inch NailsSee the animal in it's cage that you built
Are you sure what side you're on?
Better not look him too closely in the eye
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?
See the safety of the life you have built
Everything where it belongs
Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
And it's all right where it belongs
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems
What if all the world you think you know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you wanted to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afraid to see?
What if all the world's inside of your heart
Just creations of your own
Your devils and your gods
All the living and the dead
And you really are alone?
You can live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking but you can't find the woods
While you hiding in the trees
***
I put the CD player on repeat function and listened this Nine Inch Nails song, don’t know maybe 25 times (sign of madness?! Maybe or boredom. No just I admire beautiful things and this IS a nice song). I laid on the bed, took a question mark form and thought “this is one of the most strong lyrics I’ve heard in some time”. I’m not saying this just because I admire Trent Reznor as an artist. I read the lyrics again.. It’s a typical NIN trauma but how postmodern.
“See the animal in it's cage that you built
Are you sure what side you're on?”
Everyone has a basic feeling, a bestial instinct to survive that comes from our nature which we try to restrain. We are part of the nature but we close our eyes to our own nature, to our instinct. We try to destroy it, try to control and put in a cage. But it’s still there…
“Better not look him too closely in the eye
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?”
… and we are afraid to confront with it. We know that it’s there, we know that we try to hide it. But it’s still there, hidden, looking back to us.
“See the safety of the life you have built
Everything where it belongs”
And then we build something that we call “life”, around the things we believe in, to protect ourselves, to feel safe from this disturbing feeling which takes its source from our existence.
“Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
And it's all right where it belongs”
… and still we feel restless, can’t find happiness. We try hard but we still feel this emptiness in our hearts and we know that we have to live with this feeling. But we don’t want to face with it and we close our eyes, we don’t want to believe that it’s there.
“What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems
What if all the world you think you know
Is an elaborate dream?”
Nothing is certain, life is not certain. We are in this oblivion, everything is unclear. We all feel confused and lost against life which may be an illusion, something that we created ourselves...
“And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you wanted to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afraid to see?”
… and still we can’t find satisfaction and we are more and more afraid to confront with ourselves. Isn’t that the emptiness that modern man feel, the weakness we feel against life and its uncertainty, the chaos that we sink in, the personalities and identities, which we lost or are afraid to confront with?. Are these postmodern lyrics or what?
“What if all the world's inside of your heart
Just creations of your own”
Welcome to the naked desert of truth.
“Your devils and your gods
All the living and the dead
And you really are alone?”
What if everything you believe in is something that you’ve created, like everything else in your life.. What remains then?
“You can live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking but you can't find the woods
While you hiding in the trees?”
Nothing remains, except a dream that you live in and you believe that it’s real. And you go on living in this dream to feel safe. But still you search for something, try to find the truth for all your life long, but you can’t see the truth in front of your eyes. The only truth that you can’t change that you are alone.
3 Noises:
THANK YOU FOR THIS NOTHING!
Just what I needed! And said so well to the tune of NIN!
I think you are dead on in your very insightful analysis!! I must however disagree with one thing....
You said: "The only truth that you can’t change that you are alone."
I think part of the illusion is having that feeling of complete and utter aloneness. The buddhist teaching on this, however, i think would be that the this IS the illusion. The fact is, even though for the most part we are blinded to this truth, is that we can never truly be alone because we are all one...we are all the same and connected and interdependent upon one another. Watch the movie called "I Heart Huckabees" with Dustin Hoffman. You will enjoy it, I promise.
The trick is, discovering how to SEE how this is truth. Thats why my teacher tells me that I need to meditate more. He says I need to experience this natural "oneness" and that merely understanding the Buddhist theory of 'non-duality' is not sufficient.
You also said "What if everything you believe in is something that you’ve created, like everything else in your life.. What remains then?"
I like what you said here, because I think that we are masters of our own destinies by being able to control our perceptions or the way we see something. I think if we perceive good then we attract more of it into our lives. And vice versa. Most of the time when I get lost I think it is due to either lack of knowledge of how or lack of the will to change this mind set or viewpoint. So if reality is solely what we have created through our opinions and feelings and perceptions of things, then everything that happens or 'arises' we are responsible for. At first this seems like a burden to accept, but I think this concept is kind of freeing.
As you can tell, I am feeling pretty positive right now. You really hit on some of my sentiments exactly. I TOTALLY enjoyed your post today. :-)
M.
Thank you very much for your kind words again M., you don't know how glad I am to hear that you liked this post.:-) But I have to make one thing clear about this part you are disagree.
My conclusion about the only truth being "alone" was made in the sense of NIN understanding. He (Reznor) always writes songs about this subject -as you know. It's something that he is almost obsessed and in my eyes he is the best one in the world who deals with this subject so strongly. (Hmm, maybe Tool as well, or The Tea Party -but they cover that subject less than Reznor does). And this song basically about being alone or actually feeling alone. Probably it would be better if I wrote "The only truth that you can't change that you FEEL alone"--which is exactly written in the song--but now it's too late. He makes this analogy about woods and the trees. Trees may be alone but they are ONE with the woods! So it's exactly same with what you said about this illusion of utter loneliness.
In fact I am totally agree with you about this illusion of being alone. I don't know if you remember, weeks ago I had this 5 parts post about (NON)Existence of God, at the final part I'd explained what I really mean and believe, maybe you should check it:-)
But I have to say one thing; the loneliness we feel is an illusion and we are one with oneness but that oneness IS alone! I don't know if you understand what I mean but probably I'll hear it from you.
I'll check the movie "I Heart Huckabees". I'm a movie freak probably and I'll add it to my collection if it's that good as you say (and I believe you:-).
Take care.
I had a feeling you were speaking from Trent's perspective, but I apparently felt very opinionated today. LOL.
I'm glad we have a reciprocal enjoyment of each other's blogs.
You said "The only truth that you can't change that you FEEL alone"--which is exactly written in the song--but now it's too late. He makes this analogy about woods and the trees. Trees may be alone but they are ONE with the woods!"
Now THIS is truth...well said..yet again!
"...the ONENESS is alone"... this concept makes me think about this unity from a different perspective. Wow. I will have to contemplate this for a while before I can comment further. Right now it is giving me the sensation of isolation....
Thanks for making me think and giving me another perspective.
Cheers!
M.
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