Isolation

As someone with a social anxiety disorder I can relate to this song way too much. A fear that never goes away. You wake up with it, you get into bed with it. You're afraid of things that are weeks in the future and of things that are tomorrow almost equally. You feel inferior to everyone, but you don't look up to them either because you just aren't like them. You always try to fit into the world despite all these problems, but everything weakens you so much that you don't have the energy you need to be someone anyone can be proud of. However, other people don't understand that, not even in your family. You have to look for other reasons to explain your strange behavior, although that disconnects you even more from everyone. The only moments to get some energy back and that you actually enjoy are the ones in which you are alone. It's fun, it's relaxing, it's like medicine. However, people can't understand that either and will criticize you for it. You become too boring for everyone. You have to argue why you don't want to travel around the world and make parties 24/7. And that's the contradiction that follows you your whole life. You enjoy those things the most that alienate you, which in return increase the fears even further so that you want to spend even more time alone. But you can't help but cherish those lonely hours without any worries.

After having read Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, I have come to believe that the line "A blindness that touches perfection/But hurts just like anything else" is referring to the first split second of an epilleptic attack which Dostoyevsky referred to as some sort of complete enlightenment.

I think y'all are off a bit here. It seems almost certain that the "blindness that touches perfection" is referring to the "others who care for themselves" and who have caused him to surrender to self preservation. It is their perfect blindness which "hurts just like anything else." This understanding will also strengthen the tone of isolation and speak to it more directly than seeing in it a reference to the songwriter's epilepsy. The basic irony of the song, as I see it, is that the isolation is both torture and pleasure, just as total isolation always is. The songwriter is a person frought with shame and loneliness, but who since that is so total it becomes beautiful. This is his "wonderful prize" which is of course no prize at all. Tremendous, haunting and painful song. One of the best ever written, IMO.

Even as you search for people and you enjoy their company, nothing to compare to the joy of isolation and being by yourself.

xtiandeth and Schr4nz, you've made me look at this song in a different way. Possibly referring to growing up as an epileptic? The first verse seems to detail how others (family/mother in particular) react to the presence of the condition - "carefully watched for a reason..." etc. I dunno. My favourite JD track anyway, before I even knew the words.

His fear has created his way of life. It often keeps him from that which he may want yet it also allows him perks. He may be isolated and often sad, but at times he feels great joy. Hence the line "But if you could just see the beauty. These things I could never describe. These pleasures a wayward distraction This is my wonderful prize." So there is a payoff to his condition. He has settled and accepted what he believes is his fate; somehow he's made it work for him. Curtis was a genius.

i agree with xtiandeth, well done, ian had epilepsy, most likely temporal-lobe epilepsy, which most sufferers describe as being complete, or one with the world for that split second (sometimes even longer). its his "one lucky prize". in all of this isolation, because of him being so different, and because of the difficulties faced with his epilepsy, he needed something to hold on to, and through everything, that's all that he felt was worth it, that one moment in time where he would feel complete. A blindness that touches perfection, but hurts just like anything else. I love this song, my favourite one by these guys.

The lyrics... I feel the same way, Isolation is good for me, but now, i'm tired of it, I call her aloud from above, i'm surrounded by selfpreservation, and I realized that Isolation hurts just like anything else, but at the same way I say this is my one lucky prize. when you get tired of Isolation, you get a crisis and you'll start to listen "Passover". Great song

as a person that suffers from mental illness i find this song to almost perfectly describe the, well, isolation experienced by people like me due to the social stigma surrounding those who are neurodivergent. "Mother I tried please believe me, I'm doing the best that I can. I'm ashamed of the things I've been put through, I'm ashamed of the person I am." as someone who has suffered emotional trauma along with mental illness this line resonates quite well with me. my parents and the people around me do not seem to think that i am trying my hardest to cope with my situation, and i am also reminded of the shame that i have experienced for my life experiences and illnesses. anyway, i dunno, this song just really resonates with me and i wanted to give a bit of input from my perspective.

What's really cool is if you transliterate the song to acoustic guitar, it sounds like... HANK WILLIAMS!