Checking the Arithmetic Lyrics
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If life were a cool calculation
where all of the numbers compute,
then one could sum all of creation
and reduce it all down to the root.But my mind is a multiplication
of chance and illusion and doubt:
I'm confused and impatient,
a fool at foundation.
I never will figure it out.Am I just a mutation with a curious urge?
An endless vexation, a mistake that recurs?
A singular statistic, a product of the dice?
Checking the arithmetic, it's not quite right...
I questioned a mathematician:
my life is uncertain and strange,
tell me what of the human condition
can the priesthood of science explain?
She said: life is a state of transition,
a pattern of chaos and change:
of loss and division
and love insufficient
to answer the problem of pain.Am I just a tangle of jumping nerves
or a point on a line describing a curve
flickering in physics' cinema of sight?
Checking the arithmetic and it's not quite right...If I only know what I am feeling
and can't prove the world outside,
then standing or kneeling
or staring at the ceiling
you've gotta have faith as your guide.
The world of sensation
is a puzzling equation,
a persistent hallucination
so you've gotta have faith as your eye...Am I just an ache in a painful world
dreaming awake in a reciprocal blur
I'm baffled beyond logic and searching for insight,
checking the arithmetic, it's not quite right....
where all of the numbers compute,
then one could sum all of creation
and reduce it all down to the root.But my mind is a multiplication
of chance and illusion and doubt:
I'm confused and impatient,
a fool at foundation.
I never will figure it out.Am I just a mutation with a curious urge?
An endless vexation, a mistake that recurs?
A singular statistic, a product of the dice?
Checking the arithmetic, it's not quite right...
I questioned a mathematician:
my life is uncertain and strange,
tell me what of the human condition
can the priesthood of science explain?
She said: life is a state of transition,
a pattern of chaos and change:
of loss and division
and love insufficient
to answer the problem of pain.Am I just a tangle of jumping nerves
or a point on a line describing a curve
flickering in physics' cinema of sight?
Checking the arithmetic and it's not quite right...If I only know what I am feeling
and can't prove the world outside,
then standing or kneeling
or staring at the ceiling
you've gotta have faith as your guide.
The world of sensation
is a puzzling equation,
a persistent hallucination
so you've gotta have faith as your eye...Am I just an ache in a painful world
dreaming awake in a reciprocal blur
I'm baffled beyond logic and searching for insight,
checking the arithmetic, it's not quite right....