As I was driving through town on my way home from the library last week, I was in a rather analytical mood, and I flipped the radio to a secular music station for a moment to see what was on and to see whether I could evaluate the worldview of what was being said.

On this particular day, at this particular moment, the song that came over the radio was Pain by Three Days Grace, and the lyrics were startling for a number of reasons:

You're sick of feeling numb

You're not the only one

I'll take you by the hand

And I'll show you a world that you can understand

This life is filled with hurt

When happiness doesn't work

Trust me and take my hand

When the lights go out you'll understand

Pain, without love

Pain, I can't get enough

Pain, I like it rough

'Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all

What immediately struck me about the words and the way in which they were sung was that this guy isn't looking for answers...he gave up. He is bitterly resigning himself to a fate he despises, despite the agony that it obviously is costing him to admit that that's what he's doing, and now he's turning to the antithesis of everything that he truly wants.

He sought happiness, strove to discover meaning in life, and asked in agony if there was purpose for his life? And in all of his searching, he missed the answers, and he missed the point...so he turns instead to a cheap masochistic substitute and wallows in hopelessness and self-mutilation, deliberately forging deeper into his own private hell, violating others and himself in a deliberate sort of psychological and spiritual hara-kiri...because he would rather feel pain and know that he has not completely lost the sensation of feeling than to feel nothing at all, and so forget that he was once a man who was meant to feel things, meant to BE something great.

It was the saddest thing that I have ever heard, and the words continued to chase each other through my head as I drove along. I was pondering their true significance and wondering how many people could truthfully echo that chorus and claim it as their own personal anthem of defeatism and despair when I passed a bright orange sign.

It had been placed by the road to warn people that there was a crew of men up ahead painting white lines on the pavement for the enlightenment and instruction of Wausau drivers, and it was supposed to say "Paint Crew"...but the T was missing.

Pain Crew.

Yes, that's right. I checked to see if they were singing.