I etched the face of a stopwatch
On the back of a raindrop
And did a swap for the sand in an hourglass

Call yourself a watchmaker. Let it be that for this moment, you have the power to dictate the forthcoming years, the incoming revelations, the changes and developments within yourself and those around you.

Would you feel guilty, then? Would you then be responsible? Do we ever come to the point where we know ourselves and our circumstances enough to say that we are truly responsible for what we become? It's all too easy to absolve ourselves of that, to claim that acts of god and man have beaten us down, cornered us, made us do nothing but react, react, react, until what we have become is no longer in our hands.

I heard an unhappy ending
It sort of sounds like you're leaving
I heard the piledriver waltz
It woke me up this morning.

But if I were the watchmaker, don't you think I would be kinder? Don't you think any comprehensible soul would? How could anyone believe in any deity and at the same time hold within themselves a doctrine that emphasized compassion? How could one ever suppose that an omnipotent being could also be a kind one, knowing what one cannot help but know about the world?

That's an interesting question in and of itself - can an all-knowing being ever be kind? Knowing the length and breadth of what the universe encompasses, and assuming that the creator is his creation, is reflected therein - can a being that knows everything and consciences it ever be one you would want to know? Does divinity presuppose cruelty, or, at the very least, madness? Do you see now why I prefer to believe in a universe that operates according to mathematical laws, causality, physics - these things that are heartless but, at the very least, never claim to love me while they torture me.

Think of me, think of me fondly
When we've said goodbye
Remember me, once in a while -
Please promise me you'll try.

I would like to believe that the world is more random than that, because if it were, it would mean that our actions have meaning - in a random universe, our behavior can change anything and everything. Predestination of any kind, whether good or bad, negates the necessity of our existence.