Akira The Don, David Foster Wallace - What To Worship (This Is WATERWAVE) lyrics

This, I submit is the freedom
Of real education of learning how to be
Well-adjusted you get to consciously decide

What has meaning and what doesn’t
What has meaning and what doesn’t
What has meaning what has meaning
What has meaning what has meaning
W W What has meaning what has meaning
What has meaning what has meaning

You get to decide what to worship
Because here’s something else that’s weird
But true
In the day-to day trenches of adult life
There is actually no such thing as atheism
There is no such thing as not worshipping
Everybody worships the only choice we get
Is what to worship and a compelling reason
For maybe choosing some sort of god
Or spiritual-type thing to worship
Be it JC or Allah
Be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess
Or the Four Noble Truths
Or some inviolable set of ethical principles
Is that pretty much anything else you
Worship will eat you alive

If you worship money and things
If they are where you tap real meaning
In life then you will never have enough
Never feel you have enough
It’s the truth

Worship your own body and beauty
And sexual allure
And you will always feel ugly
And when time and age start showing
You will die a million deaths
Before they finally grieve you
On one level, we all know this stuff already
It’s been codified as myths proverbs
Clichés epigrams
Parables the skeleton of every great story

What has meaning and what doesn’t
What has meaning and what doesn’t
What has meaning what has meaning
What has meaning what has meaning
W W What has meaning what has meaning
What has meaning what has meaning
The whole trick is keeping the truth
Up front in daily consciousness
Worship power you will end up feeling weak
And afraid
And you will need ever more power over others
To numb you to your own fear
Worship your intellect being seen as smart
You will end up feeling stupid a fraud
Always on the verge of being found out
But the insidious thing about
These forms of worship
Is not that they’re evil or sinful
It’s that they’re unconscious
They are default settings
They’re the kind of worship you
Just gradually slip into day after day
Getting more and more selective about what
You see and how you measure
Value without ever being fully aware
That that’s what you’re doing

And the so-called real world
Will not discourage you from operating
On your default settings
Because the so-called real world of men
And money and power
Hums merrily along on the fuel of fear
And anger and frustration and craving
And worship of self
Our own present culture has
Harnessed these forces in ways that Have
Yielded extraordinary wealth
And comfort and personal freedom
The freedom all to be lords
Of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms
Alone at the center of all creation
This kind of freedom
Has much to recommend it
But of course there are all
Different kinds of freedom
And the kind that is most precious
You will not hear much talk about much in the
Great outside world of Wanting
And achieving and displaying
The really important kind of freedom involves
Attention and awareness and discipline
And being able truly to
Care about other people
And to sacrifice for them over and over
In a myriad heavy unsexy ways every day

That is real freedom that is being educated
And understanding how to think
The alternative is unconsciousness
The default setting the rat race
The constant gnawing sense of having had
And lost some infinite thing

I know that this stuff probably doesn’t
Sound fun and breezy or
Grandly inspirational the way a commencement
Speech is supposed To sound
What it is, as far as I can see
Is the capital T Truth with a whole lot of
Rhetorical niceties stripped away
You are, of course
Free to think of it whatever you wish
But please don’t just dismiss it as
Some finger-wagging Dr laura sermon
None of this stuff is really about morality
Or religion or dogma
Or big fancy questions of life after death
The capital T Truth is about life
BEFORE death it is about the real value
Of a real education
Which has almost nothing to do with knowledge
And everything to do with simple
Awareness
Awareness of what is so real and essential
So hidden in plain sight all around us
All the time
That we have to keep reminding ourselves
Over and over this is water

This is water this is water
This is water this is water
This is water this is water

It is unimaginably hard to do this
To stay conscious and alive
In the adult world day in and day out
Which means yet another grand cliché
Turns out to be true
Your education really IS
The job of a lifetime and it commences
Now

What has meaning and what doesn’t
What has meaning and what doesn’t
(You get to consciously decide)
What has meaning what has meaning
What has meaning what has meaning
W W What has meaning what has meaning
What has meaning what has meaning

I wish you way more than luck
I wish you way more than luck
I wish you way more than luck
I wish you way more than luck