Oh, me, oh, you, and oh all of us.

Before we even get started, I can hear you "music puritans" getting ready to tell me the origins of this song, as if I didn't already know and wasn't tipped off by the two Cousin Its playing guitar and bass on this track.  Yes, I know it's a Meat Puppets song.  Yes, I know that the "voice of a generation," Kurt Cobain didn't write some the best the lyrics of the past 30 years, at least as it relates to this particular song.  None of these things, however, removes the power of the song, or this performance of it, in any way shape or form.

All you haters, at least give Mr. Cobain credit for recognizing truly great music.  The "Unplugged in New York" session for MTV was his swan song, and he actually had the foresight to recognize it.  With this in mind, he chose to minimize his own music, and showcase songs by the Vaselines, David Bowie, the Meat Puppets, and Leadbelly.  The performances of these songs are still very haunting, especially Bowie's "The Man who Sold the World," and Leadbelly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night."  Still, neither of those performances compares to "Oh, Me," in my mind.

Bowie's song is grandiose and sweeping, envisioning a reality where worlds are bought and sold in some galactic market.  Leadbelly's song is extremely personal, dealing only with what can be assumed to be a man and a woman confronting potential infidelity.

"Oh, Me," at least within the context of the time it was performed, and even today, carries a far more universal theme.  It carries the theme of unrealized potential, which I'm nearly positive Cobain felt, and this idea has resonated with me for nearly two decades.  Common routines within our society divert focus from our true aptitudes.  

How many failed singers, writers, painters, and actors are out there serving coffee, food, cocktails, lap dances, or soft, wet hum jobs?  Were they simply chasing rarely attained dreams, or were those dreams rendered unrealistic by responsibility to "pay the bills?"

"I don't have to think,

I only have to do it.

The results are always perfect,

but that's old news."

Some the best and most creative people I'll ever know have never made a penny off their art, and they while away their talent delivering mail, building servers, or sweeping your fucking floors.  

If there is a reason to justify the fact that the majority of human beings only utilize 10% of their, overall, cognitive abilities, this is it.  

Society, at least to the people running the show, benefits from keeping us dumb and otherwise occupied.  If the majority of human beings, even the "educated" ones, actually woke up and realized the extent to which they've been had, we might actually see some progress for this species.  Yet, we work ourselves to death for the next new, shiny, and worthless status symbol, rather than simply saying, "fuck you, I'll grow my own vegetables, hunt and kill my meat, and live as I choose in relation to my fellow man."

"I can't see the end of me,

My own expanse, 

I cannot see.

Formulate infinity,

Stored deep inside me."

As a parent, I get the pull to "give your child everything you never had," but you never really had anything, anyway.  Ownership and control are illusory.  What you really had were varying stages of the pacifier you shove down your kid's gullet to get him to shut the fuck up so you can focus on "Impractical Jokers."

We have replaced the need to survive with the desire to achieve a fake success in a society founded on complete bullshit.  We have ignored our individual and specific talents in the name "making ends meet," and we still think we're accomplishing something when we build more widgets, file more paper work, or fix more computers than we did the day before.  We never realize we place ourselves on the same exercise wheels we employ to keep our Guinea pig from becoming a basketball.  We don't "formulate" our "infinity" because we're too consumed with improving our manufactured and marketed reality.

Civilization only scratches the surface of our next evolutionary jump, and it does for the sake of comfort.  Comfort is for bleeding pussies and asshole growths triggered by too much Taco Bell.  Sack the fuck up and take some risks.  Find your infinity and use it, if for no other reason, because it makes you happy.  If any of these power tie wearing pricks tries to remind you of your "responsibilities," pistol whip that cunt, then get back to your joy.  These assholes have actually sold us on pursuing our joy as a part-time excursion to be done in our "spare time" from doing "what they tell us is important."

If you like to fish, go fish.  If you like to sing, sing your balls off, and sing off-key (it really pisses them off when you're not "good" by their standards.)

I believe, in fact, that if you're not pissing people off, then you're not doing it right.  Piss people off, then tell them their opinion combined with $50 leaves you with $35.  When they ask you how that happens, tell them their opinion is beyond worthless, it actually implies a negative value, monetarily, then pistol whip them for missing the obvious implication.

Happiness should not come in small doses.  It's not chemo-fucking-therapy.  It's an intrinsic human pursuit, and one that Tom Jefferson seemed to believe was a fundamental human right.  

Pursue your happiness, catch it, then stick your wiener in its dirt chute.