Include the ugly.

[thomasknight]

My interpretation is tied into somethiong I heard MJK say in an interview, about how the ugly/bad things in life are just as important as the good/nice stuff. It sounds like the subject of the song can't deal with this and he wants to be living a good life, but it disturbs him too much that there are some ugly parts of his life. This could be the shadow just behind him, shrouding every breath he takes, and so on throughout the first "verse". I fell this sometimes too, maybe it's part of perfectionism, where everything has to be perfect, but we don't consider it to be. I stopped short of saying that not everything is perfect, because everything is in as much as what happens, happens. "Perfect" is only our ability to understand different possible outcomes to situations and then pick one which we think would be "better".

Back to the subject, he wants to now lead a perfect life, in terms of being "good". This is why he asks to "start over". Maybe the drinking and being drunk is refering to the state we are in when everything is going well as we see it. "Why can't we drink forever?" - we can't stay in that state because it is a false state built on illusions. The only way we can stay "drunk" is to reach enlightenment maybe. Buddhism? Possibly. And when we do reach this, it is not being drunk because it is true. We can't just go back to these states because they will lead to the ugly bits because they are built on sand, instead of solid foundations. One has to dig deeper than just getting situations where everything just feels good. This one reason why people turn to things for enlightenment, but this is coming at it from the wrong angle and one must learn that we can't just reach these "drunk" states, because being drunk and sober, is in fact exactly the same. It is about how we relate to each sitaution, but that's going somewhere else.

I hate it when it happens, why the fuck can't I think this way always. I just got a phone call, and it was nothing but it just remind me of "ugly" things. Now I think I'm a "worhtless liar" and an "imbicile". Thus leading me to try and be noble by telling people I will only complicate them, or even if I don't tell them, I won't get involved in things because I'm sucha prick I don't want to fuck it up. Shit, now I want to "drink" again so I can return to the stae I was in about 10 minutes ago, otherwise there's no fucking point.

The only thing confusing me a bit is the "past and done" part. The thing I think of immediately is the subject is frustrated that within Chrsitianity, (and I do think it refers directly and explicitly to Christianity), everything is about what we have done and whether it was good or bad, and our punishment for it. There is little about the present which is what Buddhism, for example, talks about.

That was cool, halfway through that I became the subject.

[Bhikkhu]

According to Buddhism, you should indeed try to live in the present and not in the past or future. That does not mean you should only party and drink and stuff. There is no judgement by a higher power, but there is something called Karma, which to me means (to me) that if you act like an asshole and you treat other people like shit, they will not like you because of this and they will treat you like shit too. What it basically comes down to is: treat others like you would like to be treated yourself.
You should not (try to) do things that makes you lose mindfullness. Some people become very different when they are drunk or high. If this is the case you should not drink too much or use drugs, in my opinion. When I'm drunk or high (on marijuana) I'm pretty much still the same. There's always a part of me that remains sober. When I'm drunk I may be a little more social. When I'm high I experience some emotions more intensely and am sometimes to think things over in a different way.

This song also reminds me of "The Pot", where someone (who is high?) is also blaming someone for his actions (pointing his finger).

I really don't quite follow your story, but it's late and I should go to bed now.

I just wanted to mention that this song was for me the start of discovering Tool. I saw the video of Sober even before it they showed it on the "beavis and butt-head show" and I really thought to myself: WTF is this? Afterwards I bought the album and have bought every album, except Opiate, which I downloaded.

[thomasknight]

I really don't quite follow your story, but it's late and I should go to bed now.

I'm not surprised, I just typed whatever was coming to me. My point wasn't really about actually being drunk, but "sober" is a metaphor for when we don't feel happy. The subject does not understand why he is unhappy, he thinks getting away from his unhappiness is as easy as getting drunk.