I hadn't considered that this was about the AIDS panic of the 80s and 90s, but I can see where that's relevant.
I always considered the meaning of this song to be right in the title. It's about learning to live. To put it another way, it's about growing and maturing, searching inside yourself for what gives meaning to your life. About identifying your goals, your values, your morals, and coming to understand your place in the world and what you want in order to be satisfied with life. In this life, it's important to face the unknown situations of the future, and by looking forward with confidence and self-control, you just might find kindness, beauty, truth. You can't escape the pain we all feel, that of loss, aging, and death ("nature's inflexible grace" is a poetic way of stating this), but you can reach for life, and learn to live.
I hadn't considered that this was about the AIDS panic of the 80s and 90s, but I can see where that's relevant.
I always considered the meaning of this song to be right in the title. It's about learning to live. To put it another way, it's about growing and maturing, searching inside yourself for what gives meaning to your life. About identifying your goals, your values, your morals, and coming to understand your place in the world and what you want in order to be satisfied with life. In this life, it's important to face the unknown situations of the future, and by looking forward with confidence and self-control, you just might find kindness, beauty, truth. You can't escape the pain we all feel, that of loss, aging, and death ("nature's inflexible grace" is a poetic way of stating this), but you can reach for life, and learn to live.