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Happiness Is A Side Effect Of Meaning | Proudly Made in the USA

Happiness is a Side Effect of Meaning | Proudly Made in the USA

Happiness is a Side Effect of Meaning | Proudly Made in the USA

It's a beautiful day to be alive here at the peak of recorded human history

GO FORTH AND BE MIGHTY!

Lyrics

The body and its parts are a river

“Everything is just an impression”
Said the Cynic
And the response is obvious enough
But the point is a useful one
If you take it for what it’s worth
The soul of man does violence to itself first
When it does its best to become an abscess
A kind of detached growth from the world

To be vexed by anything that happens
Is a kind of secession from Nature
Which comprises the nature of all things

To be vexed by anything that happens
Is a kind of secession from Nature
And it comprises the nature of all things

The soul of man does violence to itself
When it turns its back on another
Or sets out
To do harm
As the souls of the angry do
When overpowered by pleasure or pain
When it puts on a mask
And does or says anything insincerely and untruly
When it allows its action
And impulse to be
Without a purpose
To be random and disconnected
Even the smallest things ought to be directed
Towards a goal
Of a rational animal, follow the reason and the law of the Gods

Duration:
Momentary
Nature:
Changeable
Perception:
Dim
Condition of Body:
Decaying
Soul:
Spinning around
Fortune:
Unpredictable
Lasting Fame:
Uncertain

[Chorus]
The body and its parts are a river
The soul is a dream and mist
Life is warfare
And a journey far from home
After fame is oblivion
The body and its parts are a river
The soul is a dream and mist
Life is warfare
And a journey far from home
After fame is oblivion

What can guide us?
Only philosophy
Which means keeping the demon in man
Free from violence and unharmed
Superior to pleasure and pain
Doing nothing without purpose
No hypocricy
Randomly or dishonestly
Not dependent on any man
Doing or not doing anything
Accept what’s happening
Accept what’s happening (faded)
And all thats allotted as coming from thence
And above all that it accept death
In a cheerful spirit
In a cheerful spirit
And as nothing but the dissolution of that from what it is made
If it doesn’t hurt the individual elements to change
Continually into each other, why are people afraid?
Of all of them changing
Separating
Its according to nature
And nothings evil that’s according to nature
Nothings evil that’s according to nature

[Chorus]
The body and its parts are a river
The soul is a dream and mist
Life is warfare
And a journey far from home
After fame is oblivion
The body and its parts are a river
The soul is a dream and mist
Life is warfare
And a journey far from home
After fame is oblivion
What is divine deserves our respect because it is good
What is human deserves our affection because it is like us
What is divine deserves our respect because it is good
What is human deserves our affection because it is like us

Yo
Nothing is more pathetic than people who run around in circles
Delving into the things that lie beneath
And conducting investigation
Into the souls of the people around them
When all you have to do
Is to pay attention to the power inside you
And worship it sincerely
Keep it from becoming muddied with turmoil
Becoming aimless and dissatisfied with nature
Just worship it sincerely
Keep it from becoming muddied with turmoil
Becoming aimless and dissatisfied with nature

(Divine and human)

[Chorus]
What is divine deserves our respect because it is good
What is human deserves our affection because it is like us
What is divine deserves our respect because it is good
What is human deserves our affection because it is like us

And our pity too
Sometimes
For its inability to tell good from bad as terrible
A blindness
As the kind that can’t tell white from black
Even if you’re going to live 3000 more years
Or ten times that, remember
You can’t lose another life than this one
You can’t live another than you’re losing
The longest amounts to the same as the shortest
The present is the same for everyone
Its loss is the same for everyone
And it should be clear
That a brief instant is all that is lost
Cause you can’t lose either past or the future
How could you lose what you don’t have?
Remember two things

One
Everything has always been the same
Everything has always been the same
Everything has always been the same
Everything has always been the same
Keeps recurring
Ey
Ey
Everything has always been the same
Everything has always been the same
Everything has always been the same
Everything has always been the same
Keeps recurring

[Chorus]
What is divine deserves our respect because it is good
What is human deserves our affection because it is like us
What is divine deserves our respect because it is good
What is human deserves our affection because it is like us

Everything has always been the same
Everything has always been the same
Everything has always been the same
Everything has always been the same
(Yo)

The longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing
The present is all they can give up
The present is all they can give up
Since that’s all you have
And what you do not have you cannot lose
Ay - Ay - Ay
That’s all you have
And what you do not have
You cannot lose

That’s all you have!
And what you do not have!
You cannot lose!
[Chorus]
The speed with which all of them vanish
The objects in the world
And the memory of them in time
Of them in time
The speed with which all of them vanish
The objects in the world
And the memory of them in time
Of them in time

And the real nature of the things our senses experience
Especially those that entice us with pleasure
Or frighten us with pain
Or are loudly trumpeted by pride
To understand those things
How stupid
Contemptible
Grimy
Decaying
And dead they are
That’s what our
Intellectual
Powers are for

[Chorus]
The speed with which all of them vanish
The objects in the world
And the memory of them in time
Of them in time
The speed with which all of them vanish
The objects in the world
And the memory of them in time
Of them in time

Understand what those people really amount to
Whose opinions and voices constitute fame
And what dying is
And if you look at it
In the abstract
And break down your imaginary ideas of it by logical analysis, you realize that it’s nothing
But a process of natur
Which only children can be scared of
And not just a process of nature
But a necessary one

[Chorus]
The speed with which all of them vanish
The objects in the world
And the memory of them in time
Of them in time
The speed with which all of them vanish
The objects in the world
And the memory of them in time
Of them in time

(Instrumental Bridge)

How man
Grasps God
With what part of himself he does so
And how that part is conditioned when he does
How man
Grasps God
With what part of himself he does so
And how that part is conditioned when he does
How man
Grasps God
With what part of himself he does so
And how that part is conditioned when he does
How man
Grasps God
With what part of himself he does so
And how that part is conditioned when he does
In comparing sins
The way that people do
Theophrastus says
Those done out of desire
Are worse than those
Done out of anger

(Which is good philosophy)

The angry man
Seems to turn his back
On reason out of a kind of pain and inner convulsion
But the man motivated by desire
Who is mastered by pleasure
Seems somehow more self-indulgent, less manly in his sins
Theophrastus is right
And philosophically sound
To say the sin committed out of pleasure
Deserves a harsher rebuke
Than the one committed out of pain
The angry man is more like a victim
Of wrongdoing
Provoked by pain to anger
The other man rushes into wrongdoing
On his own
Moved to action by desire

[Chorus]
You could leave life right now
Let that determine what you do and say and think
You could leave life right now
You could leave life right now
You could leave life right now
Let that determine what you do and say and think
You could leave life right now
You could leave life right now

If the gods exist
Then to abandon human beings is not frightening
The gods would never subject you to harm

And if they don’t exist
Or don’t care what happens to us
What would be the point
Of living in a world
Without gods or Providence?

But they do exist
They do care what happens to us
And everything a person needs to avoid real harm
They have placed within him
If there were anything harmful on the other side of death
They would have made sure that the ability to avoid it was within you
If it doesn’t harm your character
How can it harm your life?

Nature would not overlook such dangers
Through failing to recognize
Or because it saw them but was powerless to prevent or correct them
To prevent or correct them
(Ey)
Nor would it ever
Through inability or incompetence
Make such a mistake as to let good and bad things happen indiscriminately to good and bad alike
Good and bad alike
Good and bad alike

But death and life
Success and failure
Pain and pleasure
Wealth and poverty
All these happen to good and bad alike
Good and bad alike
Good and bad alike
Good and bad alike

But death and life
Success and failure
Pain and pleasure
All these happen to good and bad alike
And they are neither noble nor shameful and hence neither good
Nor bad

[Chorus]
You could leave life right now
Let that determine what you do and say and think
You could leave life right now
You could leave life right now
You could leave life right now
Let that determine what you do and say and think
You could leave life right now
You could leave life right now
Concentrate
Every minute like a Roman
Like a man
On doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness
Tenderly
Willingly
With justice

And on freeing yourself from all other distractions
Yes, you can
If you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life
And stop being aimless
Stop letting your emotions override what your mind knows
Stop being hypocritical
Self-centered
Irritable
You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life?
If you can manage this
That’s all even the gods can ask of you

[Chorus]
Yeah, keep on degrading yourself
Soul
Soon your chance at dignity
It will be gone
Everybody gets one life
Yours is almost all used up
Now
And instead of treating yourself
With respect
You have entrusted
Your own happiness
Unto the souls of others
Unto the souls of others

Do external things distract you?
Then make time to learn something worthwhile
Stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions
But make sure you guard against the other kind of confusion
People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct
Every thought and impulse toward are wasting all their time
Even when hard at work
Even when hard at work

Ignoring what goes on in other people’s souls
No one ever came to grief that way
But if you won’t keep track of what your own soul’s doing
How can you not be unhappy?

Don’t ever forget these things
The nature of the world
My nature
How I relate
Unto the world
What proportion of it I make up
That you are part of nature
And no one can prevent you from speaking and acting in harmony with it
Always

[Chorus]
Yeah, keep on degrading yourself
Soul
Soon your chance at dignity
It will be gone
Everybody gets one life
Yours is almost all used up
Now
And instead of treating yourself
With respect
You have entrusted
Your own happiness
Unto the souls of others
Unto the souls of others

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