What's It For

I gave a decade to these hands.

Every hour I could steal, and some I couldn't.

Learned the impossible thing, then the next one,

until impossible got boring.

And I stood there holding all of it

with no idea where to aim.

The skill was never the summit.

The skill is the vehicle —

So what's it for? What's it for?

The hands, the hours, the terrible discipline —

who's better off when you get good?

Answer it or the answer's nobody.

What's it for, what's it for —

ask it early. Ask it now.

I'VE MET THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE

AND HE WAS HOLLOW AS A DRUM!

BRILLIANT AT AN EMPTY THING,

WORSHIPPED BY AN EMPTY CROWD!

TECHNIQUE WITHOUT A REASON

IS A KNIFE IN AN EMPTY HOUSE!

So point it. Point it at something.

Anything that bleeds when you help it —

So what's it for? What's it for?

The training, the sacrifice, the years —

they don't mean a thing by themselves,

they're just a very sharp nothing.

What's it for, what's it for —

the answer's always a person.

Mine's small. I'll say it plainly.

Somebody hears this on a bad night

and gets to the next morning.

That's the whole aim. That's the target.

Everything else was equipment.

So what's it for? What's it for?

Iron and filigree, all of it, all of it —

built heavy, built exact,

and swung at something that deserved it.

If you can do a difficult thing:

find who it's for, and go.

That's the record. That's the whole of it.

Go.