The Difference Between Running and Hiding

I focused attentively on the lyrics to "Ghost in the Machine" and I really like them. It is certainly a feeling that everyone can relate to. While the theory originally described Descartes' idea that the spirit and body are separate -- and generally incompatible -- I think the tone of the song implies a message to society. I've always felt a connection to Huxley's idea "We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes." (The Doors of Perception)

In this song, Bobby Ray is expressing frustration with others' inability to see through his eyes. He ascribes his evanescence to an inability in others to see more than "the shadow on the wall of the cave" (Plato's The Republic). There is an incommunicable nature to every feeling we have as humans, and Bobby Ray is forward about casting culpability.

What really arouses reflection in this song, though, is the verse. It posits a question of how people avoid dealing with problems. No, I agree, we can and should deal with most problems in life, but what's the point when you feel like a Ghost in the Machine? A ghost cannot pull levers or break circuits; it cannot fight the physical force of metals movings rapidly. A single spirit cannot turn the gears in reverse, or even convince them to slow. Hiding allows one to seek refuge and contemplate the machine from afar. In my experience, this only leads to greater contempt for the machine, and inevitably leads to the humiliation either of being found or of reluctantly rejoining that which drove one into obscurity. The sensation of running is cathartic. In contrast to hiding, one might actually feel as if she is escaping. The process itself isn't necessarily prolific, but the feeling is. In running, you know relatively where you are... because you know where you were. You see further and are given more to interpret, which keeps your mind from festering. It also allows you to see what you are running from.

At one point in the song, Bobby Ray mentions feeling terrified, "like I've seen a UFO," which an incredible metaphor because it is not an experience most have had, and the more you attempt to empathize, the more the metaphor blossoms.