Daniel Lubetzky

I was surfing through TIME Magazine’s Top 10 Everything of 2009 list. While many of their choices seem random and uninspired at best, some gems hidden among their finds included their choice of Adam Lambert’s "Mad World" among their top songs. I read the lyrics several times, pasted below, and listened also to the original Tears for Fears performance (also below). 

When I was a kid in San Antonio, Texas, newly arrived from a sheltered upbringing in Mexico City, I enjoyed the song but didn’t relate to it – or understand why it resonated so much among American kids who "had it all." 

In Mexico City, in every corner on popular streets there was an indigent kid begging for alms and struggling to survive, so kids that had a home and a family didn’t generally question their lot.  Why then, would kids who could eat American cereals for breakfast and go to Malibu Grand Prix feel deprived? 

In retrospect, this song hits such a chord with the alienation and loss of meaning that many feel in modern society, primarily in the developed world.  Serious challenges of course are faced every day by struggling kids. But much of it also has to do with the framing of those challenges.  "How bad do I have it relative to the 30,000 children who literally starve to death every day?" 

The search for depth and meaning, and reaffirmation of our special fortune amidst so much wealth and excess, and of our role and duty to find our own way to make this a better world for others, are critical to the health and happiness of future generations.

In very real ways, thinking of others and kinding others (ie, doing conscious acts of kindness for others) gives us meaning and fulfillment.

Mad World lyrics
Songwriters: Orzabal, Roland;

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Goin’ nowhere, goin’ nowhere
Their tears are fillin’ up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dyin’
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Mad world, mad world
Children waitin’ for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sits and listen, sits and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dyin’
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Mad world, mad world
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dyin’
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Mad world, mad world
A raunchy young world
Mad world
© ROLAND ORZABAL LIMITED;