Count Me Out by Kendrick Lamar

Okay so we all know by now that we’re all everyone, right? That is, everyone is me. Everyone. Everyone that’s ever lived or died or loved or will live and will love and will die — is me. You, him, her, they, them — Me, me, me, me, me.

And everyone has feelings right? I mean, we’re all different sure but that’s what makes us the same and therefore not different at all, right? Right.

And everyone has feelings. And me — this one living this life right now — this Ryan — feels them all. This one feels them all. And I don’t just mean all the feelings that there are. I mean all the feelings there are.

I feel, in my heart, and in my soul, every feeling that is felt by everyone alive today, and everyone that is dead today.

I have been pierced, crucified in front of all I love.

I have been assassinated while trying to save the people. First on April 4th, then again on April 4th. 1968, 2018.

I have starved. Starved of love. Without aid and succor except from without.

I have been left to die, made to die, hoped to die.

And I feel all the feelings, that’s all. I feel em all. I feel everyone’s feelings. That’s what I do here in this Ryan body. I feel. I absorb. I transform.

Sorry I have to exist. You all needed me.

“Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked — But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭53‬

This one’s for Jimmy.