It’s great to have friends to pal around with. So I’ve heard anyway, so I have heard .I’ve heard that it’s a pretty cool thing. Yeah. Anyhow, uh… yeah… for sure… it sounds pretty great. For sure it does. Absolutely it does.
“But where does evil come from?” you ask, getting very serious all of a sudden. “Where is its origin?” You’ll just have to take your place in the queue buddy. You’ll have to wait your turn. I’m afraid that’s what we all want to know, you see. That’s the question on everyone’s lips. For sure it is. That’s kind of ‘the big one’ really, isn’t it? That’s the ‘million dollar question’ for sure….
People are such pigs, aren’t they? I know it’s not ‘the done thing’ to be coming out with stuff like that, but there you go. We all know it. There isn’t anyone here that doesn’t know it and so the issue has to be addressed. Someone has to mention the bloody elephant in the room, wouldn’t you agree? But no – we won’t own up to what we’re doing. Not in a million years will we own up to it. You end up feeling as if you’ve gone crazy. You start thinking that it’s all in your head, that you’re a bad person or something. But no it isn’t in your head. It’s really going on but they’re trying to gaslight you, you see. Same as they always do. Same as they always do.
But what would I know – what would I know? I’m sitting here all alone in the privacy of my own head, hugging my knees and rocking back and forth, wailing unhappily from time to time. I’m alienated, you see. I’m as alienated as fuck. I can’t relate to anything. I can’t relate to a damn thing, especially not myself! Nothing makes me more awkward than having to be in the same room as myself – when that happens I look the other way and whistle loudly, pretending not to notice. That’s one of my coping mechanisms you see. One of my many coping mechanisms. Not that they ever work of course, not that that that that any of these ingenious strategies of mine are ever any actually use to me…
I was in the Joke Universe, joking around, having a laugh as you do. As you do. Joking around in the Joke Universe, having a good old laugh at everything, pissing myself at the general hilarity of it all. So there I was, having a laugh, thinking to myself what a gas it all was, what a hoot it was, and so on, when all of a sudden the seed of fear took root in my mind, as seeds are wont to do. All the fun went abruptly out of the situation when this happened, needless to say. All the fun left the situation in a flash and I was left there, exposed in an eternal moment of terror, a moment that had always been there and never wouldn’t be. It’s the moment that I’ve spent my entire life running from. Running on the spot, running on the spot. Trying to break away from the situation, trying to pretend that it wasn’t happening.
Fear is the only reality of course. Fear is the only reality and I had foolishly forgotten that. It had slipped my mind and I had been lulled into a false sense of security and now all that had suddenly been pulled away, revealing me in all my weakness. Revealing me in all my ridiculous laughable foolishness. I went from being as cocky as you please to being literally paralysed with terror in something like a tenth of a second. Less than a tenth of a second in fact, considerably less…
Existence is a terrible thing, isn’t it? Such a very terrible thing. When you get to think about it, when you actually get to think about it, that is. It’s unremittingly brutal and utterly unsympathetic. Unsympathetic in the extreme. Is it any wonder we prefer to live out the course of our lives immersed in our sterile little fantasies? Who could blame us, poor worms that we are, spending our days burrowing ever deeper into unreality. Burrowing like mad – never pausing, never resting in our frantic efforts to evade the truth. Ours is a piteous situation, is it not? A truly piteous situation. I know we go around pretending to be great and telling each other that we’re great and all of that, but it’s all bullshit really, isn’t it? It really is the most awful bullshit…
My ego was feasting away on my newfound glory. Boy was it ever feasting! It was feasting like there was no tomorrow. It was actually kind of sickening, now that I come to mention it.
Feasting on my newfound glory, huh? What a to-do! Only it wasn’t what you’d call ‘real’ glory of course – it was fake glory. It was glory that I had made up myself. So that I would have something to feast on. I’d starve otherwise, if I were to be honest about it. I would have starved to death ages a long time ago..
My ego is a nervy, furtive, suspicious kind of a critter – in my mind’s eye I see it as a quivering, twitchy, whiskery opossum-like thing. It’s nosy and deeply avaricious and yet at the same time nervous and fearful, knowing that there is a whole world out there just waiting to squash it like a bug, if the chance arose. No one likes a greedy self-serving ego, after all! No one likes that kind of shit.
“Damn Satan and all his works!” I piped up, hoping thereby to throw folk off the scent. Hoping thereby to distract people from looking too closely in my direction. The crowd – some great beast – growled its approval. Everyone was just as keen to point the finger elsewhere as I was. That’s the way it is in a crowd, of course – everyone in it is always super keen to deflect the blame onto someone else. To deflect the blame on ‘the others’, as we like to say…
“Damn bad people for being such dirty no-good shits!” I yelled out defiantly, looking around me to see if I was getting the crowd on my side. Looking to see if I could use them as my shield. “Damn those sad losers for being so fucking pathetic!” I squawked indignantly. Faces in the crowd turned slowly to regard me, uncertainty appearing there for the first time. For some unknown reason I was starting to lose them and the situation was getting decidedly dicey. Dicey Riley. I knew I had to think of something in one hell of a big hurry or else it was going to be all up with me. The crowd would tear me to pieces.
I have a special place in my imagination I go to when things get tough. The same as most of us, I’d say. The same as us all, the same as us all. “Go to your special place”, I ordered myself, “go to your special place and don’t come out until I tell you it’s safe to do so…” I was frozen to the spot, however. I couldn’t move a muscle – all I could do was to look on, frozen in a state of horror as my doom unfolded in front of me.
Sometimes that’s all we can do, wouldn’t you agree? Sometimes the ability to deflect the blame fails us when it’s most important that it shouldn’t. It lets us down in our moment of need and we find ourselves unexpectedly exposed, unkind eyes turning to look angrily in our direction. Naked malice hanging in the air like an actual presence. We all know that one, of course. There’s no one here can pretend they don’t know this one!
My ego had at last finished feasting and it had entered what looked like a period of prolonged inactivity. It had gone into a slump. It had entered into a somnolent state, slumped over in an ungainly fashion on the sofa, a look of coarse satisfaction evident on its blotchy face. You can’t imagine how revolting it looked, you really can’t. It’s a sight you’d wish you could forget, to be sure – you’d find yourself wishing as hard as you can that you could manage unsee this particular unwholesome sight but you just won’t be able to. No way will you be able to. The image is indelible I’m afraid. That’s my take on the matter, at any rate. That’s my thoughts on the subject…
As has been amply foretold in the Book of Procrastinations, rapture cometh (only probably not today). Possibly next month. All over the surface of the Planet Earth happy consumers are rejoicing and giving thanks to ‘the Big Guy’, the Big Guy in the Sky who loves us so much. Just as long as we keep buying the Product that is. Just so long as we keep on buying the jolly old Product… The Big Guy in the Sky isn’t so happy with us when we don’t buy that old product, of course. He’s not so happy at all then. ‘The Lord your God is a jealous God’, says the great Chief Executive in the Sky and if we know what’s good for us then we won’t forget this! Brand loyalty is everything my friends, brand loyalty is everything…
‘Trust us!’ his many representatives on earth tell us, their hearts open and their intentions pure. Their intention is to Sell the Product and there is no intention purer than this! Intentions don’t come any purer than that my friends, they certainly don’t. Intentions serpently don’t come any purer than this. The surface of this dusty old planet of ours is covered by blissed-out humans, crying out loud, giving thanks nine to the dozen, unable to contain their joy, unable to contain the bliss that is within them.
It’s hard to keep it to yourself when you’re feeling that good, as I myself know only too well. And probably you know that too. Am I right or am I right? You don’t even need to tell me that I’m right because I know it already. I knew it all along. It’s hard, it’s so very hard to keep it to yourself when you have this much joy inside of you. It’s selfishtoo and when you’re feeling that good you don’t want to be selfish – you know you’ve got to spread the word. You know you can’t keep it to yourself! You’ve got to shout it out for everyone to hea; you’ve got to tell people about how they can be saved and about how all they need to do is let the Product into their lives. Shout it out my friends – shout it out. Roar your goddamn fool heads off. That’s what life is all about, after all – it’s all about promoting the Product….
I’m high, but I’m also sad; I’m sorrowful, but at the same time I’m glad… I’m a well-known genius but I’m also a world-class dumbshit. I’m a peerless dumbshit, in fact. I’m in a class of my own. I don’t mind telling you here and now that I’ve have been through some very hard times, but the point is that those hard times have made me the man I am today. I wouldn’t have it any other way, you see. I wouldn’t have it any other way…
It’s all been forecast in The Book of Procrastinations. Forecast or foretold – take your pick. Everyone has the freedom to choose, but just make sure you don’t choose the wrong thing! It’s all been written down in the Book of Books, it’s all been written down in The Book of True Things and so there’s no escaping it. Blissed out human are swarming in their untold billions all over the surface of the planet, praising the Product at the top of their voices and crying out piteously to be forgiven for their ingratitude, which is surpassingly great. We can never be grateful enough for the Product after all, wouldn’t you agree?
I’m living in the Simulation – the same as all of us, the same as everyone, and the Simulation is telling me everything I need to know. What it doesn’t tell me I don’t want to know. Anything else is fake. That’s why I have to be so very grateful for it, that’s why I have to shout out my delight about having such a wonderful Simulation to live in. That’s why I have to keep on saying how GREAT the Product is, like some kind of bloody idiot. I have to do that you see because the Simulation makes me do it – the Simulation makes me do everything. It tells me how I feel, it tells me whether I like something or whether I don’t like it. It informs me that I’m feeling gratitude towards the Simulation and it also informs me that – no matter what I might do make recompense – I will always be in its debt. Always, always, always. It tells me this all the time – it won’t let me forget.
Shouting out my delight, nestled deep in the loving heart of the Simulation, shouting out my delight and saying how great it is because it’s making me do that, because it’s making me do everything. That’s how come I know how great the Product is – it makes me know that. I’m praising God, you see – I am praising ‘the God of the Simulation’ and the God of the Simulation is making me do that, the same as it is making me do everything…
When I was but a small wee lad, barely knee high to a barnacle, my great great grandfather, who was an ancient and wizened octopus, came to visit me and impart some of his wisdom. I remember his words as if it were yesterday, “No matter what else you do in life, my boy” he pontificated, “don’t be a steaming great knob end. That’s all you need to know. That’s all I have to say to you my boy… Do what you want in life but just try not be a fucking dickhead about it. Do you get me?” He left then. He left without so much as a single backwards glance. He left before I even got a chance to respond, and I never saw him again. I believe he got eaten by a marauding parrotfish shortly afterwards.
I am ashamed to say – however – that I took no heed of these words of wisdom that had been spoken expressly for my benefit. I took no heed at all. It was water off a duck’s back as far as I was concerned. Instead of heeding these words that had been spoken for my benefit I went right ahead and did exactly what I had been warned not to do. And I suffered the consequences too, of course – we all suffer the consequences, do we not? Every last one of us has to suffer the consequences of our heedless ignorance and there’s no escape from that. Absolutely there’s no escape from that…
There’s no moral to this story of mine, by the way. It may look as if it is heading in that direction, but it isn’t. No moral need be drawn. Nothing of that sort. Those who are destined to tread the path of the incorrigible asshole must tread it and that’s all that need be said on the subject. That’s all there is to it. That’s just the way of the world my friends and so there’s no point crying about it. Cry for a moment or two if you absolutely have to, but then move on. There’s nothing any of us that to change the way of the world, after all, no matter how enthusiastic we might be. Even our ‘Great Buddy in the Sky’ can’t change the way of the world. Contrary to popular opinion, contrary to what we would like to believe. Nothing is that simple.
Everything is ‘contrary to what we might believe’, isn’t it? You’d wonder why we bothered really, wouldn’t you? Just why the hell do we bother believing in anything, right? Idiots that we are. Maybe it’s just because we’re suckers for punishment. Maybe it’s because of that perverse streak inside us that just wants to make life as difficult as possible. That old ‘perverse streak’ has got a lot to answer for, hasn’t it? We like to give ourselves a super-hard time and nothing can put us off.
We pick something to be ‘true’ as flippantly as you please and then we work as hard as we possibly can to make it actually be true. We move heaven and earth. We fight tooth and nail; we fight for all we’re worth. We try to get everyone else to believe it too, given half a chance. If they listen to us! If they don’t get the upper hand first and force us to believe their bullshit instead. Eventually, after we’ve put ourselves through the ringer, we will – with infinite reluctance – give up on it. But not until we absolutely have to. But not until we’ve ‘suffered to the maximum’, however. Not until we’ve squeezed every last little drop of pure misery out of the situation. Now isn’t that the truth?
Empty faces in an empty world – you’ve got to love it, haven’t you? You’ve certainly got to love it, no doubt about that. Absolutely you have. That’s the whole point right there. That awful, frightening emptiness behind every face – it’s all rather splendid, don’t you think? Splendid in an eerie way. Of course, you’ve got to be the sort of person who likes that sort of thing. That kind of goes without saying, I would have thought! It’s no good at all if you don’t.
Focus on wealth, they told me, focus on abundance… They’d make you laugh, wouldn’t they? Here we are in the jolly old Preta Loka and they’re telling me to focus on abundance! They’d have to see the irony in that of course, they’d absolutely have to. No one could be so stupid as to miss that. For sure they couldn’t.
Machines don’t have the capacity to be ironic, as we know. That goes without saying, of course. They can’t pull it off no matter how hard they try. They just can’t manage it and that’s very heartening for those of us who still pride ourselves on being good old-fashioned non-mechanicals, deeply unfashionable as that may be. It’s up to us to be as ironic as possible in everything we do, to promote – as far as we are able – the pursuit of irony in all aspects of collective life. That’s a joke by the way – I don’t really mean it.
Alas, I – like so many others (like all of us, in fact) – can’t help noticing myself becoming more and more strident, more and more earnest, more and more uncouth, more and more belligerent and – therefore – less and less ironic with every day that passes. The rot has set in you see. It’s set in very deeply. The contamination has caught hold and now it won’t be denied. It insists upon rearing its ugly head. Life has become – for so many of us – a mere matter of brute survival. Or a brute matter of mere survival. We survive so that we might live to survive another day. We survive because that’s the Rule and everyone always has to obey the rule (as I’m sure you yourself know only too well). We survived because we’ve become Survival Machines and surviving is what survival machines do.
Fate is a cruel thing, is it not? Fate is such a cruel thing and none of us can avoid it, which is also very cruel. Sometimes I think that’s the cruellest thing of all. Sometimes people want to know all about my life and stuff like that. They want the inside information. They want the gossip. There’s really not much I can say on the matter, however. There is in fact very little I can say about it because it was all a big misunderstanding. It never really happened. They would cover this up if they could of course. There’s a big plot going on to cover it up, to make out that everything is going just swimmingly. It’s all going to plan, the officials tell us. None of it actually happened but the official story is that it did and that it is ‘totally true’.
Reality is a terrible risk, as I imagine most people will be only too happy to agree. It’s a terrible, awful risk. An absolutely horrendous risk… It’s a terrible risk and that’s why we play the game as cautiously as we do. That’s why we make sure to obey all the rules. That’s why we make sure to obey whatever rules might be going. ‘Focus on abundance,’ they say. ‘Be very careful that you don’t accidentally focus on extreme psychological poverty because you know what will happen if you do that!’
We survive because we have to, each and every one of us. We are survival machines through and through. We make up stupid stories in the privacy of our own heads to try to make sense of this senseless existence of ours and then we fight viciously over whose story is the right one. We’d happily kill each other over it. There’s no end to our foolishness, you see – no end at all. We babble hysterical nonsense as fast as we possibly can; we babble hysterical nonsense non-stop in order to distract ourselves from the knowledge of our terrible fate…
Dreaming of the good things, dreaming of the bad things. That’s how it goes, doesn’t it? That’s always how it goes. The good things and the bad things. We all know how this goes. We’ve all been there, you see. The thing is to focus on the good things, as everyone will tell you. The thing is to attract them to you. Those good, good things. How good they are! How wonderful and how marvellous they are. Tears come into my eyes when I think about them. Big fat stupid sentimental tears…
The good things are so very good, we say to each other. The good things are so good but you have to make very sure you never let anyone take them away from you when you’re not looking. We all have to be very careful of that. I was mixing up things that I never should have mixed up. I was dabbling in the dark arts. I was concocting a potion that contained all the very worst things in the world. When it was ready, I would drink it. When the time was right and proper then I would drink it down and I would be reborn. I would be reborn instantly as an unhappy ghost, destined to be tortured on a daily basis by all my insatiable desires. Destined to wander the Preta Loka, continually trying (and continually failing) to get my hands on all those wonderfully good things. All those very special things…
I was in a dark, dark place in my own mind, a place that wasn’t really there, a place that existed only in my own twisted and tormented thoughts. I was stuck there, I was totally trapped there, unable to imagine what freedom would even look like. Unable to imagine the smell of it. Unable to know if it had a smell or not. I guess I’m like a lot of people in that regard! I guess we all know what that feels like. Damn right we do, damn right we do… To be trapped in that place where freedom is – at best – a profoundly alien concept. Something that doesn’t actually seem real when you say it out loud, something that people would jeer at you for believing. A stupid story that we all know isn’t true, and never could be. That truly is a dark place, my friends.
Being in a dark old place like that isn’t much fun, at the end of the day. No – it’s not much fun at all. No Sir it surely isn’t. You wouldn’t really expect it to be either, would you? It doesn’t exactly sound like a barrel of laughs, and it isn’t. By God it isn’t. “Wait”, I cry out tremulously, “did something just happen there?” We all stopped to listen, straining our ears. We heard nothing however – not a thing. Not a sausage. Zilch. That’s the way it always is of course – nothing ever happens when we’re in that unreal place that we create in the discomfort of our own tormented minds. Nothing ever happens and nothing ever could…
We are all participants inthe Grand Illusion, are we not? We are all participants in the Grand Illusion but the thing about this is – of course – that we must never ever admit it! Not even to ourselves, especially not even to ourselves.
The Grand Illusion is so very grand, isn’t it? So marvellously grand, so wonderfully grand. So very, so very. Grand like nothing else. Splendidly grand. And yet at the same time it is crass in the extreme, it is an exercise that is as humiliating for all concerned as it is downright harmful. And yet also rather splendid, and yet also rather marvellous. Which is why we rejoice in it so much, perverse creatures that we are…
Say nothing about it – that’s the thing to remember. Say not a word, not under any circumstances. Refuse to admit that you know anything about it. Then you’ll be just like everyone else, won’t you? Then you’ll be part of the Grand Conspiracy too, only – like I just said – you mustn’t ever admit that to yourself. You can’t ever let yourself in on the secret because if you do that then you’ll know!
Big John walks into the room. “Hi, Big John,” we all say, “how are you doing Big John?” Only there’s no one there. There’s no one there and there’s no ‘Big John’ either. There’s nothing, nothing at all. There’s nobody to be seen – there’s just you (in your celebrated role as the virtual witness) and the empty room, just you and the empty. ‘Just you and the Big Empty’, as the man said…
“There’s no one here but me and the Big Empty,” you say, “only I’m not really here at all because I’m only a figment of my imagination. There’s no one here but me and the Big Empty and I’m only an old sham…” You were cleared of all wrongdoing on the grounds that you don’t exist – they couldn’t make the charges stick.
It was a premium product, but it also wasn’t real. Never real. But all the same a premium product! Nothing but the best. The cream of the cream. The crowd are going mad for it. You can feel the quality of it yourself if you like. You can have a free sample. The Grand Illusion is so very grand, is it not? I believe that I’ve said that already. I’m on record as having said something to that general effect. I do believe that is on my permanent record. A premium product, a premium product – nothing but the very best!
Grand like nothing else, but also humiliating – deeply humiliating for everyone concerned, which is mostly me. Mainly me. Largely me. I was found guilty by a court of my peers, but then excused on the grounds of my non-existence. I was released without being charged. I was exonerated on the basis of general irrelevance. I was let off with no stain on my character…
‘You total fucking twagger!’ I cried out, fists flailing wildly, teeth gnashing, foam spraying out of my mouth in all directions. I was absolutely incandescent with rage. I was enraged beyond all measure. I was enraged at myself, of course. I hated myself. I hated myself so much…
I was laying up treasures for myself in the Super-Validated Heaven Realm of Good Things To Come. I was laying up treasure after treasure – I was amassing splendid spiritual riches, which are by their very nature beyond compare. Beyond compare, but super-good all the same. Guaranteed by the Guarantor of All Good Things. Guaranteed by the Arch-Guarantor Himself, whose Name we shall not speak in case it is taken in vain.
I had ascended to the Ultimate. First, I aspired to the Ultimate, and then I ascended to it. I’m not wanting to mess around, you see! Never one to mess around, never one to postpone the moments of self-willed glory, I demand what is mine. Angrily, I demand what is mine and when I don’t get it I bellow and roar and paw at the ground like an infuriated bull.
‘I am he who shouts, ‘I am he’’, I shouted, and the echoes of my shouting filled the air, reflected back by the distant mountains. ‘I am he who shouts, ‘I am he’’…, the echo came back to me, returned to me with added vehemence. Returned to me with extra punch and vigour. ‘Even the mountains attest to my greatness’, I marvelled, ‘even the mountains proclaim my magnificence…’
‘It’s as well for them that they do’, I observed to myself. ‘It’s as well for them that they do or else Id’ go over and flatten them! It’s just as well that they see fit to attest to my greatness, otherwise I would grind them into dust’. Even as I thought this however, I felt myself slipping inexorably into one of my terrible slumps. Instead of bellowing I whimpered; instead of shouting I found myself mumbling incoherently. Even I could not understand what I was saying.
In my dreams I was laying up treasures for myself in the Super-Validated Heaven Realm again. I’ve always been a bit of an obsessive bastard but in my dreams I was taking it to the next level. ‘Lay up the treasures, lay up the treasures’, I told myself earnestly. ‘What a man sow so shall he reap’. Beads of euphoria sweat were standing out on my mottled forehead. Paradise was so close I could taste it…
I was recriminating against myself, giving out stink, giving myself a super-hard time, and all that sort of stuff. “You’re a crappy, useless Creator God and nobody likes you”, I scolded myself, “you’re wicked to the very core and full of ludicrous vanity.”
I knew I couldn’t continue like this much longer, however. I knew I was never going to get anything done just as long as I was divided against myself in this way. A Divided God never conquers, after all. “A Deity who is divided against Himself can never be respected,”I pontificated wisely, “not even by Himself. Especially not by Himself!” Reasoning thus, I decided to take decisive action.
I hadn’t yet decided exactly what that decisive action would be, but whatever it was it would be incredibly, awesomely, supremely decisive. There is no doubt about that! “No sir, I told myself, there’s doubt about that at all…”
Days hasten by, on their way to some important goal. They rush past me, heedless of anything apart from their ultimate destination. The rule is that nothing matters apart from getting to the Super-Important Goal as quickly as possible. The rule is that everything else is crap, that everything else is expendable. The rule is that everything else can be sacrificed for the sake of obtaining the Sacred Goal.
“Hurry on you days,” I cried out gaily, “Hurry on to wherever it is that you’re going!” I waved casually at them as they raced by. I was nonchalant, chilled out, carelessly indifferent to the spectacle – Unphased you might say. Only not really.
I had a vague feeling that something was wrong, that something bad had happened, but at the same time I didn’t know what it was. “Did a bad thing happen?” I asked myself, “is there something suspicious going on that I ought to know about?” I forced a laugh – “Nothing funny going on here,” I said to myself, “everything is fine and dandy and there’s no problem with anything…”
I had created a veneer of false optimism and it was something of a masterpiece – even if I do say it myself! Filled with a sense of unassailable pride, I strutted up and down, as cocky as can be. “You don’t see veneers like that every day”, I told myself, polishing it up a bit here and there with a bit of old rag that I keep in my pocket especially for that purpose. “I’d like to see anyone else come up with a veneer as good as this….”
‘Pride cometh before a fall’, however, as you are now undoubtedly saying to yourself. I’m sure that’s what you’d like to point out to me, if you had the opportunity. You don’t need to however, you don’t need to because I know that already. I’m not stupid, after all, and any advice you may see fit to give me is strictly for your benefit, not mine.
Something very bad had happened to the world, but I hadn’t the faintest clue as to what it might be. Something very ominous indeed had happened and yet the authorities continued to deny it. Which is only to be expected of them, of course – isn’t that what the bloody authorities always do? “Those dirty filthy stinking lousy authorities,” I raged, my face turning blotchy purple with barely repressed emotion. “They’re all Satan Worshippers and Neoliberals!” Deep down, however, I knew that this wasn’t true. Deep down, I knew that ‘the Authorities’ were me…
Do you know that thing where you make up a very special word in your head, a word that no one else knows about, that no one else can know about, and then one day you get this horrible paranoid feeling that your special word might have become common knowledge and that everyone is secretly laughing at you? Even the dog in the street is laughing at you. This is of course just a perverse fantasy, you tell yourself sternly. There’s no one no way anyone could ever have guessed your special word. You decide to Google it just to make sure. Now – if you discover that your secret is out and your special word has been uncovered then that’s your worse fears come true, so that’s no good. It’s never any good when your worst fears come true, as I think you’ll agree. But – and this is the odd thing – if you don’t find the word then you feel strangely devalidated. ‘Do I even exist at all?’, you might ask yourself.
Life is full of different experiences of course. Everyone knows that. Life is full of lots of different experiences for sure, only sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes there’s only the one experience, sometimes there’s nothing but pure monotony – relentless, tedious, soul-destroying monotony. On and on and on – the dreadful remitting monotony of your own pointless existence. What we’re talking about here is the radical impoverishment of reality itself, we might say, and that’s no joke. That is certainly not what most people would understand as ‘a humorous situation’. No Sir – there’s no laughing here. There’s people grumbling, people complaining, people giving out stink left, right and centre, but no one laughing. Certainly no one laughing. What’s to laugh about, after all?
Life is full of different experiences, as I’ve already mentioned. Lots of people know this already of course, but – then again – others may not. Some experiences are generally held to be good, others bad, and yet others again neither the one thing nor the other. And yet what are we to make of these experiences – that’s the question every philosophically-minded person is necessarily asking themselves. ‘What’s the story, my friends? What’s the story? What do you reckon?’
We’re trying to come across as being a ‘worldly-wise’ and genuinely ‘street-savvy’ person of course. Or – at least – you’re trying to come across as your idea of what a worldly-wise and generally street-savvy kind of a person would sound like. How they would come across like how they would come across. The type of things they would say, the type of things they wouldn’t say, the type of facial expressions they might exhibit at appropriate moments in the conversation, and so on. You’ve got it off pat at this stage it’s become very nearly effortless for you and you’re glorying in your newfound freedom. The world is your mollusk, you tell yourself grandly.
It’s only a matter of time before you graduate to the next level, as you have now come to realise. It’s only a matter of time before you penetrate to the heady atmosphere of the Guru Zone and there is no way to tell what might happen then! It’s only a matter of time, only a matter of time, you tell yourself . You will think of special things to say. You’ll always think of special things to say. You will be soaring high, far above any public reproach, and it’s only what you deserve. ‘No better man’, you tell yourself approvingly, ‘no better man’.
‘Do you know that thing, do you know that thing, do you know that thing…’, you bleat piteously, pathetically keen (as always) to find the common ground; pathetically keen (as always) to strike the right note, to strike a chord that resonates with somebody. It’s only a matter of time before you ‘connect’ and you’re living for that moment. We’re all living for that moment, are we not? We’re all hanging in there, waiting for our chance. Coasting effortlessly on wings of glory, soaring high in the stratosphere of our own imaginations. You’re in the Guru Zone now and there’s no stopping you…
