Akira The Don, David Foster Wallace - Because It's Hard lyrics

Biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles
Driven by the ugliest
Most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers
And I can think about how our children’s
Children will despise
Us for wasting all the future’s fuel
And probably screwing up the climate
And how spoiled and stupid and selfish
And disgusting we all are
And how modern consumer society just sucks
And so forth and so on

You get the idea

If I choose to think this way in
A store and on the freeway fine
Lots of us do
Except thinking this way tends to
Be so easy and
Automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice
It is my natural default setting


It’s the automatic way that I experience
The boring frustrating
Crowded parts of adult life
When I’m operating on the automatic
Unconscious belief
That I am the center of the world
And that my immediate needs and feelings are
What should determine the world’s priorities

The thing is that, of course
There are totally different ways to think
About these kinds of situations
In this traffic
All these vehicles stopped and
Idling in my way
It’s not impossible that some of
These people in SUV’s
Have been in horrible auto
Accidents in the past
And now find driving so terrifying that their
Therapist has all but ordered them
To get a huge, heavy SUV
So they can feel safe enough to drive
Or that the Hummer that just cut
Me off is maybe being
Driven by a father whose little
Child is hurt or sick
In the seat next to him
And he’s trying to get this
Kid to the hospital
And he’s in a way bigger
More legitimate hurry than I am
It is actually I who am in HIS way
Or I can choose to force myself to
Consider the likelihood that everyone else in
The supermarket’s checkout line is just as
Bored and frustrated as I am
And that some of these
People probably have harder
More tedious and painful lives than I do

Again, please don’t think that I’m
Giving you moral advice
Or that I’m saying you are
Supposed to think this way
Or that anyone expects you to
Just automatically do it

Because it’s hard it takes will and effort
Do it because it’s hard
It takes will and effort

And if you are like me
Some days you won’t be able to do it
Or you just flat out won’t want to
But most days if you’re aware enough to
Give yourself a choice
You can choose to look
Differently at this fat dead-eyed
Over made-up lady who just screamed at
Her kid in the checkout line
Maybe she’s not usually like this
Maybe she’s been up three straight
Nights holding the hand
Of a husband who is dying of bone cancer
Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage
Clerk at the motor vehicle department
Who just yesterday helped your spouse
Resolve a horrific, infuriating
Red tape problem through some small act
Of bureaucratic kindness
Of course, none of this is likely
But it’s also not impossible
It just depends what you want to consider
If you’re automatically sure
That you know what reality is
And who and what is really important
If you want to operate
On your default setting then you
Like me
Probably won’t consider possibilities
That aren’t annoying and miserable
And miserable but if you really
Learn how to think
How to pay attention
Then you will know you have other options
Do it

Because it’s hard it takes will and effort
Do it because it’s hard
It takes will and effort

It will actually be within your power
To experience a crowded
Hot slow
Consumer hell type situation
As not only meaningful but sacred
On fire with the same force
That made the stars love
Fellowship
The mystical oneness of all things deep down
On fire with the same force
That made the stars love
Fellowship
The mystical oneness of all things deep down
Not that that mystical stuff
Is necessarily true
The only thing that’s capital T True
Is that you get to decide
How you’re gonna try and see it

On fire with the same force
That made the stars love
Fellowship
The mystical oneness of all things deep down
On fire with the same force
That made the stars love
Fellowship
The mystical oneness of all things deep down