Ransom follows the Golden Rule, reciprocating the ill will with which his father regarded him. In other songs, his father is also said to have introduced him to this chaotic life he’s describing, acting as the indirect cause of both the implicit distress which accompanies it and the incessant, unproductive/self-destructive, obsessive mechanisms he uses to try to cope with it. Still, only temporary peace is reached with drink and sleep. The true causes remain unresolved, enshrouded in the same emotions clouding all remnants of any clarity, accentuating the disparity between Ran’s ideal state of being and apparent state of reality.
Confusion breeds desperation which leads to unpredictability.
Light begets darkness, and darkness is drawn to light. Which side will he now decide to walk on the long, winding road of life?

Becoming a victim of violence is an implicit risk of selling drugs. Death is our inherent destiny. Timothy exceeded the need to just survive, reaching the need to provide for his family. To him risking life, limb, and freedom is seen as a necessary sacrifice, the needed means to rise and achieve the life of his dreams. A life which consisted of modest and few things, mostly seen as necessities.

This is a reference to 2Pac’s Thug Life Philosophy

Everyday he just sits back and watches people who keep it as real as cartoons. Similarly, he notices the same amount of reality, or there lack of, being presented in much of the popular music today, also inferring that he metaphorically “eats” these exaggerated, undifferentiable types of rappers routinely, and as nonchalantly and as often as he would eat his daily lunch.

The common follower of a person will view him from inside the parameters of the most generic and bland cereal box (no offense to plain cheerios), thinking the most generic and bland thoughts, and see him as strange simply because he chooses to think outside that box whose inherent limitations of individuality they have willingly conformed to.

Between the “cartoons” and the “cereal” surrounding him, it’s as if he is submersed in an imaginary world being told it is reality. Reminiscing on his youth, he is able to maintain an untainted view of the world which allows him to see through society’s facade. He consumes the inescapable illusion but refuses for the illusion to consume him.

Aside from the Vatican’s silence during the Holocaust, Pope John Paul II worked for IG Farben, the chemical company which sold the Nazi’s zyclon b, a chemical which reacts with air to yield cyanide gas used to exterminate the prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp, during WWII. Afterwords, he became the youngest Polish Cardinal in history and succeeded Pope John Paul I after his 3 days as Pope and mysterious, sudden death which many believe to have been an assassination. Pope John Paul II would later repeal the decree forbidding Catholics to belong to secret societies.

Poetry is characterized as the densest form of writing with how it says so much with so few words. The depth his lyrics pack could literally label them as poetry that, instead of expressing on a sheet of paper, he spreads by rapping over a beat, which in this song particularly emphasizes and even adds more depth to their meaning.

“To weigh on” is an idiom with dual meanings of:
1. to burden by cause of worry or anxiety
2. to burden or push down by physical force
And used as a legal term to describe “harassment”.
Here he takes all of the intangible emotions and events that he’s been discussing, and combines them all through the use of an umbrella expression (covering the mental and emotional anguish, beefs incited by “harassment” from other rappers, i.e Ransom, as well as from record company and industry politics, i.e Def Jam, that held back his career). Now that he’s passed all that crap, he finds himself in a mysterious place where it’s literally all good. To explain this mystery he suggests that maybe the burden has shifted to his physical being, as if there has to be a burden- he’s never known life without one before.

This is a double entendre. Joey had a beef with the rapper Game that had ended prior to writing this song, and as with any beef, it gave him a spark of motivation that disappeared with the beef. The second meaning to this line is now that he’s finally overcome all of the obstacles the industry put in his way in “the rap game” and “made it”, what’s there left for him to do, to prove?

A common symptom of the depressive stage of bipolar disorder is loss of interest in things you used to enjoy, thinking that there’s no point to it and this particular activity doesn’t contain much substance or benefit, particularly for Joey who in various songs says when at clubs he just stands against the wall with his hat low and pops pills- might be a good idea for him to stay away from this one if that’s the case

Joey walks to the beat of his own drum, yet strangely there’re times where his drum beats and steps are out of sync. It took a whole lotta time throughout the course of his emotionally tumultuous life to be able to figure out why that happens..it was hi-hat symbol being bashed in the background, which is of course a symbol for the effects of his unique mentality, being both bipolar and OCD.