Nitwitz

Perhaps it's wrong to color a person's perception about lyrics like this and it robs them of the experience of understanding what it's about. On the other hand, judging from the number of posts for DIMD and the nature of the subject matter, someone might as well do it.

I think the meaning behind unDeveloped lies between the external ideas and the individual thinking them.

I'll start by saying this seems to be about people who lived during the Cold War, or at least the stage is set during such a time period.

And when you hear the "crazy crazy way to define your life" I think it might be referencing people who sort of use insane events in order to define the time period they lived in. Kind of like how the "greatest generation" is defined as all the people who fought in World War II where millions died. And often people from that generation are defined by their military service and how they "served their country".

But this isn't really about WWII. More so talking about people who defined their life during a certain time period, and how Americans defined their life during the Cold War as being based around the conflict between the US and the soviet union. And there was so much fear based around atomic bombs, nuclear weapons (and there still is obviously), so much paranoia and people working in order to avert a nuclear disaster.

Point being, there are vast amounts of other ways in which a government could kill citizens of an opposing one or of their own. To assume that nuclear weapons are the only form of warfare that can really be harmful to us is very ignorant. And when I say this I'm not referring to arab terrorists strapping bombs to their bodies or flying planes into buildings. But there are perhaps far more complex ways of killing people that don't involve nuclear weapons as people thought of them during the Cold War.

And yet people are nitwitz because they assume that the only thing they have to fear is an atomic bomb and are ignorant of the other ways in which people can be killed. The whole "zip it up clear for public part" could describe diversionary tactics used during the Cold War maybe based around the STAR WARS defense that Reagan talked about in a speech.

And feeling like nothing's inside here, could be these people's heads or the viability of the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative). So the SDI was another sick maneuver? To hide to disguise? Or maybe it's referencing more current situations that mirror the past Cold War.

So defining your life based on these large scale events pertaining to our government (kind of like how people of the more current generation would view a time period before 9/11 and after 9/11) is thought to be crazy crazy crazy.

Not quite sure about the whole "hit this" lyric but here's some suggestions. Maybe because these people smoked marijuana in their youth and probably quit around the time of the Cold War or something? And smoking marijuana could remind them of the past. Or trying to find a way to slow time down? Limit time? Too high?

Maybe similar to 'Comedown' in that these people are on some sort of metaphorical drug they need to get off of in order to see the truth. So they're too high right now? Or they're supposed to hit some wall "this" in order to wake up from their dream.

These all could be wrong, not sure.

But they're the atomic kids who now forget about the situation they lived in during their youth. And they forget how such Cold War fears were used and how harmful they were to society, and also maybe even how unfounded they were? Yea, so the fears were acidic.

So what do queers have to do with this? I think it's the fact that around the time of the Cold War homosexuality was considered a mental illness and was listed as such in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual). That's the manual psychologists/psychiatrists use to diagnose mental illness in people, and it's constantly changing.

And so fast is the pace these people live in, they so quickly forget how things were in the past and seem to live day to day with no contemplation about how the past relates to the future (the present).

But even though just a few decades prior, homosexuality was considered a mental illness by our society (like schizophrenia, depression, etc), by a snap of the finger homosexuals have pride again. Those who forgot something...doomed to something it, I forget.

Not sure if what we're seeing inside here is inside him or inside them. But anyways it's like people have lost the appetite to examine what life is about and examine the past and how it relates to the present and future. Like they've lost the energy to understand anything that's not 6 feet in front of them.

He's feeling something inside him now? Traced from this Cold War time period? Engaged to the lies.

Kind of like connecting the dots between the past and the present, that's why it's "traced from another days" and the lies of the past are engaged to the lies of the present.

So people are continually only capable of the most basic, surface attention to world events and yet they define their life based on these events without even understanding them very well or questioning them. There may be a repetition to it all I suppose. In cycles.

I'm glad I wasn't alive during the Reagan years though...or we'll see?

In the end, if you take nothing else from unDeveloped, maybe the most important thing is the idea of misinformation.

For the type of person who is deeply concerned with congruence in the world, the type of person who seeks out some sort of truth to stand on in order to understand existence, this misinformation can be very problematic.

And it's the fact that it's difficult, sometimes impossible to use science to inquire into the hidden intentions or meanings of other people's actions. Even more difficult is when groups of people are piled up into institutions and you attempt to reach firm conclusions about those situations. Then imagine how that difficulty can be magnified even further when you're examining these situations from your living room and on top of that you have a pretty weak basic education you're relying on.

So you're deeply concerned with finding the truth, but the truth you're looking for is perhaps impossible to determine and you're looking for it from a poor vantage point (making it even harder to determine).

But misinformation flows in both directions. On one hand, maybe you can't accept the "Official Version" that is presented to you. And on the other hand, the "Official Version" has been altered and obscured because it's assumed that you can't accept it. Or more specially, everyone obscures the truth in their heads, almost subconsciously, before they disseminate it to the outside world.

There's a difference between a person searching for social truths from their couch and a person measuring the natural world using science. But one is so much more boring than the other, and seems so much less pertinent, right?

And so people approximate the truth as best they can from their position in the world, and alter the "Official Version" as much as they have to in order to feel OK about it from both the dissemination angle and the acceptance one.

So misinformation just keeps piling up, just piles of shit that keep growing and distorting reality. The Internet is a good example, obviously. And from both ends, in many cases, the people who put forth this false information think they are doing someone a great service, they think they're protecting something or promoting something. But it's all just bullshit.

It's not the case that truth doesn't exist either, that you can't possibly trust any information. It's just that, with the gross excess of misinformation, you grow distrusting of any information you're presented with which is problematic.

Finally...

Beware of those who claim to possess ultimate truths about the world. But also beware of those who question the ground they walk on.

And it's not that you should stop crying about all the poor decisions seen, just have to stay away from the alliance between that and your insides. Also knowing that it's not necessary to devise a thesis of everything and make constant connections between all situations. You're most likely stumbling in the dark anyways.

You have to wonder if the conspiracy theory type of attitude that shows its scales throughout unDeveloped is perhaps some construct designed in order to be able to accept the state of the world.

Like instead of thinking up a God who is the creator of the many benign occurrences in the world, you create a Devil who is responsible for all the problems.

Because if the world is controlled by the long-reaching omnipresent tentacles of this nefarious construct then working to change things becomes less of a concern.

Instead, absolutely all you can possibly do is "wake up" to what's going on around you. And until everyone "wakes up" nothing can be done.

So once again, you retreat into your shell where all you can possibly pay attention to is your own existence because this conspirational power is too great for you to combat alone. Other people need to wake up for change to occur. A process that involves the vague ideas of "expanding your consciousness" or "understanding the truth." That change will occur from this "awakening" alone. Or in the provocation of some large-scale civil unrest that never happens.

The inaction of such people is interesting considering their views, if they hold them to be absolute truth. You'll see lone wolf type of stuff, but nothing organized that actually moves closer to doing anything positive. Of course we've seen conspiracy theories turn into genocide in the past, but you can't paint them all as being the same in terms of ideas. The more modern ideas typically don't carry any serious combined action it seems.

No doubt there's evidence for organized conspiracy, but you have to question supposed truths when they carry so much weight. What's wrong with a worldview that doesn't incorporate those sorts of ideas?

Difficult to justify inaction, cognitive inequities when it comes to understanding why certain events have occurred. That is, the official version that you witness is too hard to take in and it doesn't have the flow of a nice narrative, too jagged, too many things you don't fully understand and the dots are difficult to connect.

Moreover, there's the idea of having access to sort of hidden knowledge, a separator for you against a massive cross-section of the population (the majority of people) who are in the dark about such issues.

These heavy belief systems are extremely problematic and, I think, exist because they serve specific intrapersonal functions.

But do I only suggest this because I can't accept the truth of what's really going on?

And then somehow, though the faces look different and the words change position, you can't distinguish your discussion with the fundamentalist christian from your discussion with the ardent conspiracy theorist. It's like the same song, just a different verse.

Belief systems are designed to serve specific intrapersonal functions. If you end up in a situation where a belief system isn't necessary to you, truth becomes less meaningful because you're only concerned with the truths of specific actions you're involved in. But critical thinking and inquisitiveness are really something to be celebrated, but when you take the easy road to pursue those interests and are bombarded with misinformation (often not deliberately), you're going to have a hard time truly getting to the bottom of anything.

It's a strange world we live in where people who claim to be most connected to the concrete truth of the world are perhaps the same ones who could be hiding from it the most. Even stranger when you've been there.

But so many problems... No way to solve 'em. Have to run them through your machine, change into something else more comfortable. Or just put your head in the sand.

No matter what you do though, you won't be able to stare directly into this metaphorical sun for very long. Because if you do, the last meal you consume... will probably taste like gun metal. Or something to that effect.