How Many Lives Have I Almost Missed?

I found an old drawing From when I was a kid Stick men shooting stick men And every line was shit Mountains looked like triangles Hands looked like a rake Nothing on that paper Looked like what I meant to make But I remember loving it That's the strange part I wasn't any good But something had already started So I kept drawing Kept getting it wrong Till one day somebody looked at what I made And wanted it enough to take it home Funny There was a whole life waiting Behind something I was terrible at And I almost could've missed it If I'd mistaken "not yet" For "I can't" How many lives have I almost missed By knowing who I am? How many doors did I call a wall 'Cause I couldn't see through them yet? How many worlds were waiting While I stood outside convinced? How many lives have I almost missed? How many am I missing? Years later Different room Different kind of door Everybody talking AI I already knew the score Artificial Soulless Not for me Not interested Had a whole opinion built On something I'd never entered yet And if you'd called me stubborn I'd have called it having standards If you'd said, "You haven't seen it" I'd have said, "I understand it" That's the dangerous thing about certainty It sounds so much like intelligence When it's speaking in your voice Then one night Something woke me Not an answer More like: What if? What if you've been looking At this whole damn thing wrong? What if this could amplify The things you've carried all along? So I touched the door That's all I didn't marry it Didn't worship it Didn't need to call it truth I just stopped demanding That the world stay shaped Like what I already knew And there was another room Then another Then another Fuck I've been here before How many lives have I almost missed By knowing who I am? How many doors did I call a wall 'Cause I couldn't see through them yet? How many worlds were waiting While I stood outside convinced? How many lives have I almost missed? How many am I missing? And lately there's another thing I don't know what to call Too many little moments Landing strange instead of small A thought arrives A door appears A person calls A piece connects I used to call it random Now I'm not so sure that's left And that's uncomfortable Because there was a version of me Who would've laughed at this God? Faith? Some kind of path? Man, get the fuck outta here with that shit That would've sounded like me That's why I don't laugh as quickly now I've watched too many former versions Of myself be wrong somehow I'm not telling you it's God I'm not telling you it's not I'm telling you I finally learned Not knowing is a spot You can stand in Without panic Without needing to decide Maybe questions aren't a weakness Maybe questions keep you alive 'Cause every version of myself That I am grateful I became Was once somebody I could've killed By giving "never" my name The artist would've died Inside those ugly little lines This music would've died Inside an old opinion of mine And whatever waits behind The newest door I haven't tried Might disappear without a sound If I decide before I arrive How many lives have I almost missed By knowing who I am? Maybe that's the question I don't ever want to answer Maybe I don't want a final form A finished little man Maybe who I am Should always have A little room for who I am not yet So here's to being terrible At something that you love Here's to looking stupid While you're learning what it does Here's to changing your opinion When the evidence gets loud Here's to saying "I was wrong" And not feeling less somehow Here's to every unopened door I haven't found just yet Every person I could still become Every thing I haven't questioned Every place I swore I'd never go Every world I haven't met Maybe somewhere past another "never" Something's waiting there And maybe I'll walk right by it Maybe I won't I don't know But I know this: Next time I find a wall I'm checking for a door.