1. a state of severe alienation and burnout. When the pressures of life and the evils, insanity and corruption of the outside world are too much and you build a mental
wall and you shut yourself out from everything and everyone. You just want to retreat by watching TV or listening to
music a LOT to take you from your inner pain but your attention span is so minimized you may wind up on the couch looking up at the ceiling and constantly changing TV channels with the remote. Certain scenes or sounds may bring up painful emotions and make you cry. So you try to quench the pain by smoking, drinking or doing
dope.
2. a song from the 1979 Pink Floyd classic double album "The Wall" where the alienated and overburdened rock musician
Pink (no, not the real life
female pop singer!) is found " comfortably numb" watching the tube and is given "a little pin
prick" of horse to "get going for the show". The lyrics (written by bassist Roger Waters) describe in great detail this condition of mental/emotional illness. Dave Gilmour gives a fierce
guitar workout and Nick
Mason slams an electric drum as the tune fades out. Richard Wright'
s synthesizers are augmented by an orchestra.
1. Daniel is dog tired after working 12-hour shifts all during the week, and rotating
shift schedules every week on top of that. He just sits on his
couch and polishes off the Riunite and tokes while watching 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from. In the meantime he has scenes from his life flashing back in his
head. He has become comfortably numb.
2. "Comfortably Numb" is a major highlight of a Pink Floyd concert.