It's a Trap
Our poetic predicament.
Seize the day, control and counterplay Strive harder, hustle smarter Teach it to your sons and daughters Focus on achievement, accruement Build and lever your gilded tower To exact compounding power Never mind the darkness spawning Desire is what the virtuous are always mining This way This is the way This is the only way Production is the doctrine Repetition is the mantra So goes life under the rule of Alphas Just a pawn in their dreams Vicarious living through their means An entire planet under one dogma Where failure to thrive is the karma Of the lazy, lame, and the fallen This way This is the way This is the only way The selfish cleverly exploit the system The soulless grift victim after victim The captivated emulate and listen Some claim resilience, Protestant perseverance Many bet on a new mask, a reinvented stance And there's always a plentitude of pills To push the pistons of our ambition Myriad are the paths to modern redemption This way This is the way This is the only way Anything but acknowledging complicity Anything but claiming responsibility Anything but abandoning resolutely The cyclic madness of our habits Better to secure prestige and station Perfect the art of masturbation Double down, manufacture doubt Hinder minds from imagining a way out This way This is the way This is the only way The gaslight and neon hypocrisy Illuminates our trajectory Legitimizes markets and profits Products and pulpits Life's miracle turned gladiator spectacle Imperial dog and pony ritual Committing us deeper into conformity Automating our destiny This way This is the way This is the only way Praised be to authority Glory to scheme and strategy For technique and stasis are the sacred traits Good for the gander, good for the goose Good for the death and destruction loosed This industrious sleepwalking leads to no escape And Time will not confess to when it's too late When the thresholds break and shut goes the gate— All aims are bound to fate
Bonus: For the Love of Lyrics
All these couples are kissing And I can't stand the heat I lost my shoes and left the party I wandered in the street I put my feet into the fountain The statues all asleep No use wishing on the water It grants you no relief
—Florence + The Machine, Mother