vital signs

Unstable condition -- a symptom of life
in mental and environmental change.
Atmospheric disturbance -- the feverish flux
of human interface and interchange.
The impulse is pure -- sometimes our circuits get shorted
by external interference.
Signals get crossed and the balance distorted
by internal incoherence.

An ounce of perception, a pound of obscure --
process information at half speed.
Pause, rewind, replay -- warm memory chip --
random sample holds the one you need.
Leave out the fiction --
the fact is this friction will only be worn by persistence.
Leave out conditions --
courageous convictions will drag the dream into existence.

Everybody got mixed feelings about the function and the form.
Everybody got to elevate from the norm.

-- Neal Peart (Rush) 1981