How It Is

A meditation on acceptance — learning to take life as it comes rather than raging against its unfairness. The title's simplicity is deceptive; after what Peart had endured, the ability to say "that's how it is" represents hard-won wisdom.

At just over four minutes, it's one of the album's more compact tracks, with a directness that suits its theme of plain-spoken acceptance.

The song captures the moment in grief when anger gives way to a more sustainable equilibrium — not happiness exactly, but the ability to keep living.