I thought Ticks & Leeches was a little out of place in this album for a while, but the more I thought about it, the more it makes sense - stuck between Parabola (realizing the gift that is life) and Lateralus (evolving to a higher conscience). I laughed a little when I read Bob Frissell’s book ‘Nothing In This Book Is True, But It’s Exactly How Things Are’ when I got to his term “victim consciousness.” It’s exactly how I thought of this song.
“In victim consciousness, the ultimate victim is one who doesn’t know that he or she is creating reality, and believes that things just happen”. (pg. 224)
“If you buy into the illusion of separation and “good vs. evil,” you are stepping into victim consciousness. You will then be confronted by a very powerful universal principle, one that works unerringly. It is: Resistance leads to persistence. This means that you will keep re-creating what (on a conscious level) you don’t want; and it will only increase in intensity.” (pg. 227)
Ticks & Leeches represents a particularly destructive flaw of the domesticated primate- spiritual ignorance. Anger, self loathing, depression, despondency, tribulation, pain... You GET what you GIVE. What you give is a manifestation of your sub(un)conscious that is projected outward and onto others; but you don’t perceive reality in that way. It’s just how things are, after all... We endure the cycle to move to the next step. It’s the state of mind that most of the modern world is stuck in and too few are struggling to get out of. You create what you don’t want and it will intensify with time. Is that what YOU want? Is it what YOU have in mind? Well, that is what YOU are getting. The only way out of the cycle is to acknowledge that you are actually creating it. You can’t go from Parabola to Lateralus without Ticks & Leeches. Now, stop choking…
