This is a poem/song analysis on Life Wasted by Pearl Jam. Just wanted a few of your opinions if some of you felt like reading this. Lyrics are here if you want to read them. I'd be happy for any opinion on it to be honest. I felt like I did the greatest I have ever done on any written response (proving that my writing sucks) on the first 2 paragraphs but the next 2 are okay. Let me know especially if you see grammatical/spelling errors! Thanks so much for taking the time to read! Enjoy the show! A Life Wasted Response Immediately, the immense power of the poem “Life Wasted” is felt in the reader's body of how brutally accurate such a poem is relating to a person’s realization of how short life is how it can be too late, and too rapid of which the awareness of this sudden feeling can occur. One can feel a sudden helplessness when such a thought occurs, but this poem states one of the only fixes of this feeling is changing yourself. The poem also details how one must never find oneself going back to such a way of life. Perhaps described in such piece is of which it is usually found the cause of this feeling of how wasted your life truly is, is that of loss. Never give up when this depressing state brings you down; just follow along with the change and remind yourself “I am never going back”. How does this poem connect to such a sensation? “You're always saying you're too weak to be strong,” explaining the buildup before an occurrence of feeling life is just too short, and how disappointed you feel in yourself after the fact. The author is talking to his older self; he cannot believe he was once feeling this way. Also the passage “And I seen the home inside your head,...All locked doors and unmade beds. Open sores unattended,” describes what your life can look like before, locking yourself up, and isolating yourself. Again, talking to his older self as he’d be the only one who could and would know what himself would feel, think and act like. To dig even deeper, “You're always saying that there's something wrong… I'm starting to believe it's your plan all along…,” possibly referring to that one actually does recognize the inequality of balance their life currently is, even describing it’s your own plan all along to just be reluctant and too ignorant to admit the negative aspects to one’s own life, out of fear of change or just laziness topping the right thing to do. And then the chorus of sorts describes how one can know he has felt such helpless, in such a way he realizes his life wasting away, discovering life is just too short to leave it as it was for him. “I have faced it,... A life wasted,... I'm never going back again. I escaped it,... A life wasted,... I'm never going back again. Having tasted,... A life wasted,... I'm never going back again,” having each small phrase to let readers know that he himself had faced this sensation of a life wasted, as well as having escaped it and having tasted it. The chorus also constantly reminds us he never went back again to that old style of life after realizing all the hours of life wasting away, impossible to ever get back. As the saying goes, “you don’t know what you really have until it’s gone”. But why does this consciousness of occur? What causes it to suddenly happen? This occurrence must be an action affecting the life of the person in a major way. An easy answer to this is death, considering the poet wrote this following the death of a friend of his. Though, this is a poem analysis, and the conclusion to this question is already clear; the poet uses the word death very soon into the song. “Death came around, forced to hear its song… And know tomorrow can't be depended on,” having this very passage, the message is lucid to the reader. Death not only creates grief in the mind of missing that person, but forces one to feel all the time on useless pastimes instead of spending time with others. This also brings the song back full circle to the beginning, “All locked doors and unmade beds.” Locked doors meaning again isolation, and in the future after one's death, you regret having those doors locked and those unmade beds, of which are metaphors. Do not waste precious time on unimportant activities as anyone will soon discover it’s too late to spend that time on important activities. With family and friends, the most important things in anyone's life, the poem describes. To sum up the meaning the poet in this piece, as Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going”. If you are at the end of a rope, tie a knot and hold on, and slowly you will climb back up. And perhaps even finding yourself at the end of that rope is for a greater good, teaching you an important lesson. Described in this poem, it can even be taken that the death, although is devastating and a terrible action to happen, actually teaches you to change, and change can be unpleasant, but is necessary. Enjoy life to its fullest and always remember that life is too short to be unhappy, or constantly feel in a negative space. If you feel that way, part with the person or thing creating such negativity to you. This is not only the advice the poet gives to the reader, but the greatest advice anyone could give you. And Sam is cool and wanted to read this. Thanks Babe.
And I would have posted this in my homework thread but I know no one would care of actually reading about it there but the click bait helps me get views and stuff Thank you all who reply!
And one last thing if you find any word contractions, sometimes I accidentally use them when I actually mean not to, so if you can spot those out for me I'd be grateful. Thank you all!
