doug galecawitz
06-30-2004, 10:41 PM
Given the limited amount of space and much that I want to say, I'm going to skip my normal disclaimer on this song. Those of you who have read my other interpretative essays will know where I stand on such issues as song meanings and interpretations. From here on out I will try to procede with as much humility as you will allow me to induldge in.
Before I begin I do have one other thing I would like noted. It seems to be habitual for us when talking about evolution to drift into language that describes higher or lower organisms or species being more or less evolved. This however signifies a huge misunderstanding about what Darwin's theory actually entails. A cro magnon man is not a less evolved human he is a perfectly evolved cro magnon and in being a creature that evolves within it's ecosystem (not seperate from it) the cro magnon or the firefly or the musk ox are all species that are perfectly evolved within their space and time. Furthermore the idea of intelligence as a product and goal of evolution is also somewhat of a misnomer that requires forays into psychology, socialology, and philosophy in order to link it up to Darwin's theory in anyway. That said if I should by habit drift into this higher/lower more/less language please excuse me and I will plead ignorance
The idea of 46&2 has for sometime been on my mind and there have been enough thoughts surrounding this song swirling in my head with which to post three or four of these threads and still not get everything out that I want to say. Certain areas of the song such as Jungian theory, chromosome theory, and the math theory (of counting by base 46 instead of base 10) I am going to mostly leave out. In regards to these theories and their potential connection to the song I think that the evidence may suggest a veil of meaning but not the greater meaning of the song itself. Furthermore I may not be as well versed as some of the others in these various subjects and would therefore allow them to cover each topic on it's own terms with more detail and precision than I could accomplish. But these thoughts I do believe hold some connection, even if passive, to the song.
The first thing about the song is what exactly does the shadow represent? Not an easy question given the esoteric nature of the lyrics. Could the shadow be the pesron's past? or possibly their memories? or could it be the person's beliefs and opinions? could it be another person? maybe the shadow is the unknown. or the unconscious. maybe it is the darkness of the human spirit. maybe it is the emotional baggage of cynicism or nihilism. Then there is the possibility that the shadow is just a shadow. I'm often struck by the idea that the same light that makes us all visible to each other is the same light that gives birth through us to our shadows. The irony being that if we must exist in light then our darkness must make itself known. Spooky, eh?
So what is the shadow suppose to represent? Well in any case, one of the major themes of the song seems to be change or transformation for the better. So the singer could be shedding his beliefs, religon, the dark parts of his soul. A kind of exorcism of something that may have outlasted it's purpose. The song to some limited extent in this regard reminds me of the transformation of teenagers, from adolescence to early adulthood, when everything from their bodies to their beliefs kind kind of shaken up and reorganized. In light of the idea that it is the person past or some other emotional baggage the song would take on less of an exorcism of the shadow and more of a therapy to bring it into the light. Another idea is that is the shadow itself shedding skin. Shadows quite obviously do not have a skin of their own, so what does this imply?
Throughout my life I have gone through a series of ideas and one by one the ideas after a time seem to outlast their usefulness. The periods of change where I am without any solid belief with which to hold on to can be quite confusing. On the personal level if the shadow represent an actual physical person then the song could potentially be about the healing process after a painful loss or break-up. In any of these cases the "digging through my old muscles" would be a sort of lofty re-evaluation of some aspect of the singer's life. The "clearing out what could have been" would in then be singer deciding to take some new direction in thought, practice, or both. In the retrospect of beliefs in my own personal life I gave up an out right hatred of religon and took up a view that wasn't quite so one sided. (Of course in ten years my views right now may seem one sided to me) This has happened to any number of attitudes I have harbored over the course of my life and it doesn't seem likely that the pattern of change, will change much. I don't believe that as a thinking creature the singer's life has been much different. People who gravitate towards music in general do so because of some demons that they need to confront and move beyond. It would not be suprising to find out that the singer is fianlly letting go of some anger, or a grudge, or some belief that could no longer be sustained.
The question may eventually arise "does this journey of self discovery and self evaluation necessarily have to be personal?" and my answer to this in regards to the song would be no. Society and culture are constantly trying to come to grips with good and evil, the the past, present , and future, and why are we here? Some believe that to consider one's self seperate from the journey of humanity is but mere delusion. That even though as physical entities we appear seperate underlying this is the knowledge that no man is an island unto himeslf. This is where the concept of evolution comes into the song. Keep in mind that by evolution I mean (for right now) the change of man's ideas, minds, and societies as well as his physical body. In the case of societal and spiritual change within humanity, the skin would be traditions, the scabs would be be bad individuals or bad ideas, and the insecure delusions may be that of the delusion that beliefs have a reality unto themselves. As we slide forward on the crest of the time the idea of social evolution would be that as time passes we as human beings will become more civil and respectful towards each other as individuals, as societies, and as creatures beneath the eyes of a god they may or may not exist.
Another theme that is born out of this idea of change is the ideal of the achievement of something better. A utopian ideal that the singer strives for in either himeslf or within humanity. And at that the means to achieve that ideal seem to be utilitarian towards the end of the song with the lyrics "i choose...." It seems ultimately open minded that a better spiritual temperment will be achieved by whatever means necessary...(the ocean refuses no river) But then something else about this gets me thinking. In buddhism it is constant striving that is the root of all suffering. And the only way to achieve nirvana (the highest spiritual enlightment) is through the abandoning of all striving. In this retrospect could the shadow itself be the singer abandoning desire? Oddly enough the song is vague enough that it could be either. Three cheers for ambiguity.
So what of the 46 & 2? What does that mean? Well my honest answer in this is that I just don't know. While it could easily be the chromosome thing or the math thing or even the I ching, I somewhat hesitate when song lyrics are taken that literally. The point being that the number could represent just about anything. Look around the world and through all types of rare and arcane literature and you will find the number showing up everywhere. That type of thinking is called numerology, used properly and your going to see whatever it is you want to see. (Yes I have seen Pi) Of course you don't necessarily need numerology to see what you want to see, that's part of what perception is, but alas that is a topic for another thread.
Well I could go on but I'm sure at this point you're bored to tears, so I'll spare you the second half of this that I had planned out. To anyone who made it this far, i hope you enjoyed this and maybe got something out of this rambling non-sensical horse manure..........
Before I begin I do have one other thing I would like noted. It seems to be habitual for us when talking about evolution to drift into language that describes higher or lower organisms or species being more or less evolved. This however signifies a huge misunderstanding about what Darwin's theory actually entails. A cro magnon man is not a less evolved human he is a perfectly evolved cro magnon and in being a creature that evolves within it's ecosystem (not seperate from it) the cro magnon or the firefly or the musk ox are all species that are perfectly evolved within their space and time. Furthermore the idea of intelligence as a product and goal of evolution is also somewhat of a misnomer that requires forays into psychology, socialology, and philosophy in order to link it up to Darwin's theory in anyway. That said if I should by habit drift into this higher/lower more/less language please excuse me and I will plead ignorance
The idea of 46&2 has for sometime been on my mind and there have been enough thoughts surrounding this song swirling in my head with which to post three or four of these threads and still not get everything out that I want to say. Certain areas of the song such as Jungian theory, chromosome theory, and the math theory (of counting by base 46 instead of base 10) I am going to mostly leave out. In regards to these theories and their potential connection to the song I think that the evidence may suggest a veil of meaning but not the greater meaning of the song itself. Furthermore I may not be as well versed as some of the others in these various subjects and would therefore allow them to cover each topic on it's own terms with more detail and precision than I could accomplish. But these thoughts I do believe hold some connection, even if passive, to the song.
The first thing about the song is what exactly does the shadow represent? Not an easy question given the esoteric nature of the lyrics. Could the shadow be the pesron's past? or possibly their memories? or could it be the person's beliefs and opinions? could it be another person? maybe the shadow is the unknown. or the unconscious. maybe it is the darkness of the human spirit. maybe it is the emotional baggage of cynicism or nihilism. Then there is the possibility that the shadow is just a shadow. I'm often struck by the idea that the same light that makes us all visible to each other is the same light that gives birth through us to our shadows. The irony being that if we must exist in light then our darkness must make itself known. Spooky, eh?
So what is the shadow suppose to represent? Well in any case, one of the major themes of the song seems to be change or transformation for the better. So the singer could be shedding his beliefs, religon, the dark parts of his soul. A kind of exorcism of something that may have outlasted it's purpose. The song to some limited extent in this regard reminds me of the transformation of teenagers, from adolescence to early adulthood, when everything from their bodies to their beliefs kind kind of shaken up and reorganized. In light of the idea that it is the person past or some other emotional baggage the song would take on less of an exorcism of the shadow and more of a therapy to bring it into the light. Another idea is that is the shadow itself shedding skin. Shadows quite obviously do not have a skin of their own, so what does this imply?
Throughout my life I have gone through a series of ideas and one by one the ideas after a time seem to outlast their usefulness. The periods of change where I am without any solid belief with which to hold on to can be quite confusing. On the personal level if the shadow represent an actual physical person then the song could potentially be about the healing process after a painful loss or break-up. In any of these cases the "digging through my old muscles" would be a sort of lofty re-evaluation of some aspect of the singer's life. The "clearing out what could have been" would in then be singer deciding to take some new direction in thought, practice, or both. In the retrospect of beliefs in my own personal life I gave up an out right hatred of religon and took up a view that wasn't quite so one sided. (Of course in ten years my views right now may seem one sided to me) This has happened to any number of attitudes I have harbored over the course of my life and it doesn't seem likely that the pattern of change, will change much. I don't believe that as a thinking creature the singer's life has been much different. People who gravitate towards music in general do so because of some demons that they need to confront and move beyond. It would not be suprising to find out that the singer is fianlly letting go of some anger, or a grudge, or some belief that could no longer be sustained.
The question may eventually arise "does this journey of self discovery and self evaluation necessarily have to be personal?" and my answer to this in regards to the song would be no. Society and culture are constantly trying to come to grips with good and evil, the the past, present , and future, and why are we here? Some believe that to consider one's self seperate from the journey of humanity is but mere delusion. That even though as physical entities we appear seperate underlying this is the knowledge that no man is an island unto himeslf. This is where the concept of evolution comes into the song. Keep in mind that by evolution I mean (for right now) the change of man's ideas, minds, and societies as well as his physical body. In the case of societal and spiritual change within humanity, the skin would be traditions, the scabs would be be bad individuals or bad ideas, and the insecure delusions may be that of the delusion that beliefs have a reality unto themselves. As we slide forward on the crest of the time the idea of social evolution would be that as time passes we as human beings will become more civil and respectful towards each other as individuals, as societies, and as creatures beneath the eyes of a god they may or may not exist.
Another theme that is born out of this idea of change is the ideal of the achievement of something better. A utopian ideal that the singer strives for in either himeslf or within humanity. And at that the means to achieve that ideal seem to be utilitarian towards the end of the song with the lyrics "i choose...." It seems ultimately open minded that a better spiritual temperment will be achieved by whatever means necessary...(the ocean refuses no river) But then something else about this gets me thinking. In buddhism it is constant striving that is the root of all suffering. And the only way to achieve nirvana (the highest spiritual enlightment) is through the abandoning of all striving. In this retrospect could the shadow itself be the singer abandoning desire? Oddly enough the song is vague enough that it could be either. Three cheers for ambiguity.
So what of the 46 & 2? What does that mean? Well my honest answer in this is that I just don't know. While it could easily be the chromosome thing or the math thing or even the I ching, I somewhat hesitate when song lyrics are taken that literally. The point being that the number could represent just about anything. Look around the world and through all types of rare and arcane literature and you will find the number showing up everywhere. That type of thinking is called numerology, used properly and your going to see whatever it is you want to see. (Yes I have seen Pi) Of course you don't necessarily need numerology to see what you want to see, that's part of what perception is, but alas that is a topic for another thread.
Well I could go on but I'm sure at this point you're bored to tears, so I'll spare you the second half of this that I had planned out. To anyone who made it this far, i hope you enjoyed this and maybe got something out of this rambling non-sensical horse manure..........