I read a lot about
Terrible things that people have done to each other
You just cannot
Even imagine it, it's so awful!
So you don't wanna be someone like that
Now do you have a reason to be?
Yes, you have lots of reasons to be!

God, there's reasons to be resentful about your existence
Everyone you know is gonna die
You too! And there's gonna be a fair bit of pain along the way
And lots of it's gonna be unfair
It's like, yeah!
No wonder you're resentful
It's like act it out, see what happens
You make everything you're complaining about
Infinitely worse!
There's this idea that hell is a bottomless pit
And that's because no matter how bad it is
Some stupid son of a bitch like you could figure out a way to make it a lot worse!
That's what life is like
It's suffering!
That's what the religious people have always said

[Chorus]
Life is, life is suffering
Yes! (Watcha gonna do about it?)
Life is, life is suffering
Yes! (Watcha gonna do about it?)
What do you do in the face of that suffering?
Try to reduce it!
Start with yourself
What good are you?
Get yourself together for Christ sakes! So that when your father dies, you're not whining away in the corner, and you can help plan the funeral
And you can stand up solidly
So that people can rely on you
That's better, don't be a damn victim
Course, you're a victim!
Jesus, obviously!
Put yourself together
You know how to do that
You know what's wrong with you
If you'll admit it
You know there's a few things you could like polish up a little bit
That you might even be able to manage in your insufficient present condition
So you might shine yourself off a little bit, and then your eyes will be a little more open
Then you can shine yourself up a little bit more
And then maybe you could bring your family together instead of having them be the hateful, spiteful, neurotic, in-fighting bastards you're doomed to spend Christmas with

[Chorus]
Life is, life is suffering
Yes! (Watcha gonna do about it?)
Life is, life is suffering
Yes! (Watcha gonna do about it?)
So, then you fix yourself up a little bit
Kind of humbly because you know, God
You're a fixer-upper if there ever was one
And then you gotta figure out how to make peace with your idiot brother
And probably not because he's just as dumb as you, so how the hell are you gonna manage that?
So then maybe you get somewhere that way, and your family starts functioning, and you find out that kind of relieved a little bit of suffering, although it reduced the opportunities for spiteful revenge and that's kind of a pain in the neck
And so, when you get your family together a little bit, and you're a little clued in then, at least a bit because you've done something difficult that's actually difficult
You're a little wiser, so then maybe you could put a tentative finger out beyond the family
And try to change some little thing without wrecking it
Our society is complex
And we teach our students that they can just fix it
It's like go fix the military helicopter, and see how far you get with that
You're like a Chimp with a wrench, whack! “Oh look, it's better!”
It's like no! It's not better!
Things are complicated and to fix things is really hard
And you have to be like a golden tool to fix things
And you're not!
And that's the other message of the West
How do you overcome the suffering of life?
Just be a better person

[Chorus]
Life is, life is suffering
Yes! (Watcha gonna do about it?)
Life is, life is suffering
Yes! (Watcha gonna do about it?)
[Chorus]
Life is, life is suffering
Yes! (Watcha gonna do about it?)
Life is, life is suffering
Yes! (Watcha gonna do about it?)

[Instrumetal Bridge]

That's how you do it
Well, that's hard
It takes responsibility
And I think, you know, if you said to someone
Do you wanna have a meaningful life?
Everything you do matters
That's the definition of a meaningful life
But everything you do matters!
You gonna have to carry that with you
Or do you want to just forget about the whole meaning thing and
Then you don't have any responsibility because who the hell cares and
You can wander through life, doing whatever you want gratifying impulsive desires
For however useful that's going to be, and you're stuck in meaningless but you don't have any responsibility, which one do you want?
Well, ask yourself
Which one are you pursuing?
And you'll find very rapidly that it isn't the majority of your soul that's pursuing the whole meaning thing, because look what you have to do to do that, you have to take on the fact that life is suffering you have to put yourself together
In the face of that
Well, that's hard!
Christ was made 'cause people couldn't even do it
I'm stunned everyday when I go outside and it isn't a riot
With everything burning

[Outro by Akira The Don]
Watcha gonna do about it?
Life is, life is suffering
Watcha gonna do about it?