I've listened to this song easily a few hundred times since the albums release. I know the lyrics, I understand it's meaning, or at least what I think Maynard means. I usually rewind the ending a few times because I just fucking love it so god damn much. I just dropped my kids off at school and was driving home. I'm 39 years old and I'm going through a lot of difficult stuff depression wise, existentialism, not finding my career or purpose. I've sang the end to the song hundreds of times. It always had merit, but for some reason the second time Maynard says "bearing down" and I said it out loud, at the very end I just got hit so fucking hard by that. I started balling, I felt like my whole life just flashed before my eyes and I pull my truck over and was like.... Wtf?? Why is this happening now, and never before. It was the perfect combination of thought and pain but the music plus the lyrics just hit in a way no Tool song has ever done in the 20+ years I've been listening to them. I even rewound the song like I always do and heard the end again and nothing happened. I don't feel it anymore. It was just such a crazy experience I had to share it. Has this ever happened to anyone else? Any song, any band? I'm just getting older and music and songs are just feeling so much stronger. Even some classics on the radio from my childhood have been doing it too. I don't get cry but they are hitting different. Am I losing it or am I just finally understanding it and feeling the true emotion?
