Achieving anything desirable in life requires a willingness to accept risk. A partner, friend, or child, for example, risks immense emotional pain that loss would inevitably bring. Often we decide that such ultimate experiences, like finding love or happiness, is worth the risk of pursuing them. However, sometimes we perceive risk to be more likely and dangerous to be worth the trouble. We may think that the likelihood of rejection is too high to pursue a relationship with someone, so we refuse to pursue anyone and mistrust signs of affection from others. Fear nudges us to believe that focusing on our actual desires, and pursuing them, will build our hopes only to disappoint us. Noah Kahan’s Tidal embodies this concept, allegorically describing a life where all control is given to fear. Tidal explores an individual’s relationship with life, happiness, and love, and concludes that isolation is safer, easier, and thus preferable to pursuing that which could make us happier. The song is an ode to a hopeless, depressed mental state, a commentary on the power of fear, and ultimately a suggestion that a risk-free, safe lifestyle developed by complete surrender to fear is not only safer, but inescapable.