Lost & Found (a song I wrote)

I wrote this song over 2 years ago, shortly after I first became connected with the Center for Applied Rationality. It was an eye-opening experience, and I found myself wondering how I fit into everything… the Bay Area rationality communities, my intentional community in Waterloo (which I was also fairly new to at the time). I was also in the process of re-understanding my own identity and how to communicate Malcolmness to people. For reasons, it took me awhile to get around to recording it. But it still resonates with me a lot.

Lost & Found Lyrics

I got lost, and found
that I could no longer hear my favorite sounds
and so I wandered around… singing aloud

trying to capture all these thoughts
trying to master all these abilities
learning to connect all the dots
and cultivating possibilities

I got lost, and found
that all my bright colors had turned to greys and browns
as I wandered around, downtown

looking around at all the faces
tryna recognize the places
their minds must be
to generate the shapes I see

simulate them on my own features
the body is my teacher, of how they feel
making these strangers real, to me

–instrumental/scat solo–

I got lost, and found
that I just couldn’t seem to keep my feet on the ground
and so I wandered around, the clouds

Tryna find my direction
but I need a more direct connection
with my terminal goals, to
determine which road to point my soles to

Find a reason for all my actions—
gain some better traction
using fusion and fission…
to align my hands with my vision…
in every life decision…

—
I found my map was not the territory
at first, this was kinda scary for me
but I know that living with uncertainty
beats living with a false sense of security
so now the plan is to think on everything I think I know
and if it doesn’t match the world to let it go
putting what remains into creations like this song
reminding me that I can never be quite right only Less Wrong

So I seek out every opportunity
for creating and cultivating possibilities
meeting with groups of people, with intersection goals
and integrating them into an interconnected whole
the conversations get more and more and more abstract
and meta and meta-meta and just like this they go off-track
but in the end we’re honing in on the world we wanna see
all intelligent beings… acting with empathy
—

I got lost, and found
I had so much to do, and so many questions how
but the wandering around… ends now