Stress, by definition, is simply strain. Pressure is a persistent force: both physical and psychological. Stress, more broadly, is what happens when things get unbalanced. In the body, for instance, the stress response is controlled by two systems one that promotes "fight or flight" and one that promotes "rest and digest" which work in opposition to each other: when one system has been active for too long, the other one steps in and balances things out and vice versa.
It's important that these systems don't work at the same time, because you don't want to be digesting—or, ahem, excreting—while you're busy running away from a predator. But when the fight or flight system is active for too long, your body takes serious hits and can have long-term damage.
We suffer because our bodies respond naturally to unnatural stressors. Modern urban or suburban living, although perhaps more "comfortable" and "convenient" than older types of human lifestyles, is actually not always so great.
Think about owning a house. Okay, you have shelter from the weather and the cold. But you also have power and gas bills, maintenance and painting costs, a dog who needs walking, laundry that needs washing, a backyard that needs upkeep, etc.
So, for the luxury of having shelter, you get to put up with a million other nuisances that can make your life one big headache. To pay those bills, you need a job, and you might have to commute through heavy traffic or a crowded subway or bus to get to that job. You work long hours, you sit in an office, you fight traffic both ways, you get home, and then have to cook dinner or go out to eat, all of which costs more money.
And how did you afford this housing in the first place? You most likely went to school and, let's face it, school is hard.
Let's just say that pulling one all-nighter after the next while eating pizza while writing is not exactly healthy. Then you graduate, realize that living is really expensive.
Maybe you meet someone you love which, even though it's amazing, is also very stressful and search for an apartment or house where you can launch your adult life. And unless you are lucky enough to be a famous actor or musician or have a cooking or travel show or inherit lots of money, "adult life" generally consists of working your booty off at least five days a week just to get by. And celebrities, for all the money they have, seem to have crafted their own special brand of Hollywood-related stress, which leads to depression and drug abuse.
Kind of makes you want to relinquish civilization and all its "worldly comforts" and move to Antarctica, doesn't it? So, let's take a look at the progression of "Fake Plastic Trees" and see where this all ties in. We start out with:. Her green plastic watering can For her fake Chinese rubber plant In the fake plastic earth. Wow, that's a lot of plastic for three lines. It's meant to be ironic: Obviously you don't have to water a fake plant, and you can't plant a fake plant, especially not in fake earth.
What we're seeing here are a whole lot of fake things masquerading as real things think I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!
So, if the very plants around our characters are just a bunch of green plastic, we can only imagine what the people are like. Well, next we find a girl, who got her watering can from "a rubber man in a town full of rubber plans. Being surrounded by all this fakeness and plastic wears her out.
And she's not the only one:. She lives with a broken man A cracked polystyrene man Who just crumbles and burns. This man—presumably her boyfriend, husband, or lover—who she lives with in this rubber town is just as plastic and fake in this case made of Styrofoam as the rest of her surroundings. It's a metaphor for how living in this plastic society has even turned the living, breathing people into shells of themselves.
He's "broken" and "cracked," depressed beyond all belief, although he probably tries to maintain an appearance of happiness or at least complacence. But really, though, just like plastic, all he does is crumble and burn. Even more ironically, the song implies that he used to be a plastic surgeon in the '80s.
So, not only does he live in the frighteningly modernized world of Canary Wharf, but he also used to inject actual plastic into real people. All of this "wears him out" just like it "wears her out. Who is this "I" that we are suddenly dealing with? The polystyrene man? Another guy? Thom Yorke never makes it quite clear; all we know is that this "I" person seems to love the "she" in the song and feels like he'll never be good enough for her "all that you wanted".
Well, for argument's sake, let's make it the plastic man, singing about his feelings of isolation. And let's also go back to the watering can for a minute. Why does this couple have a watering can for a fake tree?
It serves no functional purpose, so what's the point? Like everyone around them, this couple wants to seem perfect, but the pursuit of perfection is always a lost cause.
They might have one of those relationships that people stay in just for the sake of appearances. The woman might not have space or dirt to plant a real garden, but she buys the watering can anyway to make her tree look real for the neighbors.
The guy is really depressed, despite the fact that he's probably rich a retired plastic surgeon living in a high rise apartment and feels deeply inadequate but tries to hide it. We aren't told their ages, but he's probably middle-aged or older considering he's retired, and she could be anywhere from 20 to We really have no idea.
For me the first two serve as a backdrop for the third story. The third story is actually where the music picks up. Simliar to what has been posted, it's about loving someone so much that you are forced to be someone you are not. The song laments on how difficult it is, but he has no choice.
Love makes you do crazy stuff. It makes you endure things you don't want to endure. But it's wearing him out. How it ends is really up to you. It is very interesting though, to see how everyone gives it a different interpretation based on the filter of their own personal context they see it through.
With that in mind, I take and own the part where he says: It wears me out. It wears me out Your explanation resonates with me. General Comment There's something so piercing about this song and its utter sense of hopelessness, yet it ultimately makes it so comforting MercurySmile on January 08, Link.
So true I love this song, but afraid to hear it Clapback on June 20, MercurySmile words cant describe the feeling. That's the beauty of this song. It has a common feeling in all meanings. And it's comforting. General Comment He's talking about the American lifestyle.
We don't care about how something really is, as long as it looks good and gives a good impression to those whose opinions mean something to us.
The girl married the guy, because her family would be happy she married a successful guy who probably did plastic surgery which is faker than fake. Everyone is just living in a house of cards, no one knows who anyone really is anymore because society dictates what we should be. No Replies Log in to reply. General Comment Wow, great and sad song, Thom is a genius I don't make any difference in her life Even thought, i still love her, but i can't do anything about it, she doesn't want me It's incredible how close your tale is to mine.
I am plagued by my infatuation with this girl, but unlike your tale, she is no different to the plastic people I see daily. She ignores me and just doesn't even want to have anything to do with me. Oh how I wish I could be who she wanted. Jimcroce on May 09, But I might win with my history.
Is quite simple, this girl was everything I wanted, she was more than perfect, utterly beautiful and deeply interesting, we shared a vision you could say and the best part: she was in love with me, just like i was in love with her. We had a long realtionship like for a year, half our senior year and first semester in college. Then things started to turn bad.
Then I realized that it was because she started change with college, he started to be like everybody else, kindda shallow, different plastic friends, didnt care anymore about lots of things we both thought matter a lot. Then she just stopped loving me, cause of course, i wasnt anymore what she wanted..
I know you feeling bro. I Its remind me to my brake up just 3 weeks ago. It is so close to my story. Only, i feel more lucky because i just date this girl just for 2 months.
Short story, Similar as yours, she started to like everybody else. In just 2 month we are so close,, one of my most intimate relationship. But after she meeting that bastard, who is more likely to be her father, it completely different.
When we broke up, she said that she never went to serious relationship with me, just a shallow one. What a fake! General Comment To me this song is all about artificial societal conformity.
The goal to be what the world deems is 'perfect' is a constant challenge because of aging and 'gravity' as mentioned in the song. It speaks of a man who was a plastic surgeon who once thought looks were everything, that's where he first fell in love and that's where his money came from, but eventually he realized that there is no authenticity in pretending to be something else. The perpetual struggle to remain perfect actually causes imperfection, and in conclusion, 'it wore him out', like it wears all of us out.
Perfection is nonexistent, and we're all living in a fake plastic world trying to be something we're not. Angaliene on February 18, Link. Angaliene poe22 on September 21, General Comment My take. This is a song about a woman who married a rich plastic surgeon and had the perfect live living in the suburbs. Years later, neither were happy. He was a depressed plastic surgeon and she realized the material things didn't make her happy anymore.
She was stuck in the the suburbs acting like she was happy with her fake smile, fake watering can, watering her flowers, which she didn't give a shit about, while here she still lived with her miserable, depressed husband. WOuld make a rather good fictional book. General Comment this is my favorite song Artists - R.
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