Born, Never Asked

perhaps a bit too non sequitur for substantial analysis.

though I wonder whether the title refers to the universal complaint of the adolescent: "I never asked to be...!"

It was a large room (the world) Full of people. All kinds. (Isn't the world?)

And they had all arrived at the same buidling at more or less the same time. (We are all here in the here-and-now, are we not? Or looked at another way, look at the people around you in the world - as long as you are all alive together, you are existing together in one big moment, no matter how young or old you are. The only ones who aren't are either not born yet, or dead.)

And they were all free. (Everyone is free - to a certain extent. Free to live, free to die, free to make choices. Perhaps those choices can be limited, and perhaps those choies may have repercussions and consequences, but we are free to make them.)

And they were all asking themselves the same question: What is behind that curtain? (Where do we come from? Where do we go? Why are we here? These are the big questions people ask once they think outside the box of social conditioning. Are we here to work in a checkout line? Are we here to administer order to the masses with our riches? Kill another person out of hatred? Give up all possessions and love everyone unconditionally? Some think there is no inherent meaning to life or existence and that it is the meaning we impose upon it that matters. Others think a Supreme Force has created everything and placed us here to do it's will. All of these questions are shrouded in mystery for which the answers may never be known. This is the viel, or curtain between the known and unknown. Perhaps it can be likened to that veil which separates the temple from the ark of the covenant in the temple of Solomon.)

And so we're born. And so we're free. So happy birthday. (Regardless of what we think the meaning of life is - we are given this life and it is like a gift. What we do with it is up to us, and it's not always an easy thing.

But do we ask to be here at all? Whether it's all an accident of matter or the direction of a higher being, WERE we asked to be here? or is life thrust upon us leaving us bewildered about what it is, why it is, and what our role in it all is? I don't think this is the universal complaint of the adolescent, I think this is the human condition we all are born into. We have to be born into a world in which things have already been set up by those who came before us. Are people who get along well in life well adjusted or have they simply accepted their puppet-hood? Perhaps we are here to make the world a better place for when the next Born, never asked-s come along...)

The last line, by itself, is a wonderful haiku-sized poem. There's a touch of nihilism in it. It tends to reject religion, though not necessarily. What does one do with birth, and freedom? Now, Happy Birthday can mean simply that, joy at being born. But it can also mean all the happy birthdays one will collect over time (because, after all, when one says happy birthday, it's usually on the anniversary of one's birth, not the actual day of birth). So happy birthday simply becomes a method of counting time, of ticking the clock ("this is the time, and this is the record of the time," Laurie will say in another song). Happy birthday is a way of answering "what's next?" after birth. And then, in an odd way, this parallels the first stanza with it's (pseudo?)marvel at the fact that a group of individuals has gathered at the same time. We are all brought here "in medias res," in the middle of things. As Peter Blegvad sings, "stories all start once upon a meantime ... in the meantime life goes on, ticking like a mean time bomb."

I took this to be an anti-draft song. "It was a large room full of people, all kinds" is the draft induction ceremony.

"You were born, and so you're free. So happy birthday." The birthday is your 18th and you're drafted but you were never asked if you wanted to join the military.