Beware the meteoric rise to fame and fortune, that’s what I always say! If I thought it would make any difference I’d advise you to run a mile the next time it looks like this is about to happen to you but no one ever does, of course. No one ever does.

I speak from personal experience here, of course. I always speak from personal experience – either real or imagined. It’s got to be either the one or the other, after all. If it’s not the one way then then you’ll find that it’s probably the other. Folk always seem to imagine that fame and fortune is what they want but that’s only because they don’t know what a burden it is. If ‘burden’ is even the right word here. The curse of fame and fortune would be more like it.

Sometimes people become famous for no reason, all of a sudden. Everyone knows about them, and no one knows how this happened. No one knows how they know – they just do. Everybody knows, instantaneously. That is the way it happened to me anyway – it was like a magnesium flashgun going off in my head. A sudden blinding light making it so I couldn’t tell whether my eyes were open or closed. There was no escaping the light.

My life changed forever from that moment on and if that ever happens to you then you’ll find that it’s not an easy thing to cope with. It’s the very last thing you wanted to happen but what you want or don’t want doesn’t actually matter at all. That is the Big Secret no one ever wants to know! One minute you’re getting on with your life, minding your own business, keeping your nose clean, and so on, and then the next you’re Universally Famous. Through no fault of your own, I might add.

As I sit here at my writing desk I find myself wondering how many people are actually capable of comprehending the essence of what it is I’m saying here. The sort of fame that I’m talking about here is very far from the normal everyday sort, after all. It’s not like being a wildly popular movie star who everyone recognises on sight, or like being a mighty rock star standing on stage in the iconic rockstar stance who gets the fervent crowd to roar out the chorus to the well-known and iconic rock anthem he is belting out. This is normal everyday fame, which really isn’t that much of a big deal when it comes down to it. Normal fame is merely an opaque metaphor for the type of thing I’m talking about here – it’s only a faint echo of the real thing, a terribly feeble imitation.

The type of fame I’m talking about is all-pervading and self-arising – there’s no need for any public relations, in other words. There’s no need for any hit singles or chart-topping platinum-selling albums or any of that kind of rubbish. That’s all just cheap vulgarity and it’s not something I personally want to have anything to do with. That type of stuff isn’t a patch on what I’m talking about, which regular folk simply can’t conceive of. ‘How dreadful it must be to be like normal regular folk in this regard.’ I reflect soberly to myself – and not for the first time either! ‘What a thoroughly appalling state of affairs it is to be ruled by convention and hemmed in on all sides by popularly held misconceptions…’ I feel myself cringe even to think about it – that must surely be the worst fate to befall any sentient life form. I can’t think of anything worse, anyhow. Can you?

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I began my poem in a manner that was both abrupt and uncompromising, as is my way, and with a great flourish of my pen I set the following words to paper, that they may lie there, sullenly and insultingly, for perpetuity. And as I wrote these words I knew beyond any doubt that this was to be my magnum opus, the work that I will be remembered for. If I am to be remembered for anything it will be this…

We were taught this life of solemn stupidity (I began), and so shall we continue it. So shall we continue with courage and conviction, with great glee and alacrity, taking no head of the seething doubts and dark misgivings that gather in their swirling multitudes in the shadowy recesses of our minds.

We were instructed – with the greatest of care – in the ways of solemn stupidity by our elders and betters who sought to obtain redemption for themselves this way, believing – as they did believe – that heaven would look down favourably upon them, if only they could ensure the perpetuation of the Sacred Nonsense.

So it was therefore that we learnt the ways of our venerable forefathers, that we might make these ways our own, and cherish them as they did cherish them. We learned the ways of our forefathers that we might continue their legacy and continue – as they did – to bring endless misfortune to this poor sad abused world of ours.

This is how we prove our loyalty in an indifferent age you see – this is how we prove our worth in an age which no longer respects the baroque and phantasmagorical foolishness of the past. This is how we show our mettle in an uncertain age, in this treacherous age of decay and sorrow when so many deadly forces are ranged against us…

How well we learned our lesson, I reflect – we learned it better than our teachers had any right to expect. We learned it too well of course and that is the whole problem right there – in our keenness to learn we had made the classic mistake: We made the mistake of giving up our own lives so that our long-dead forefathers might live again…

I grew tired then, exhausted by the effort needed to give birth to a poem of this extreme epic nature. I grew tired and because of my tiredness I fell into a deep sleep. I fell into a deep and troubled sleep and in my sleep I dreamt wildly of all the many galaxies that there are out there spinning silently in space, and of all of the multitudinously different and varied things that are going on in them. And as a result of all this fervent dreaming activity when I awoke I found that I was one hundred times more exhausted than I had been before ever falling asleep.

I was deathly pale and drawn as a result of all that I had seen and my hand shook so badly I could hardly hold my pen. It was only a matter of time before the Dream Police came knocking on my door, I realised – I had tripped their wire and so now they would be on my case for exceeding the dream limit.

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I was a police officer in my own imagination, running around like a total maniac, arresting people all day long, arresting everyone I saw. ‘You’re busted you freak’, I called out gleefully, ‘I’m arresting you for breaking the law!’ I would indulge in a bit of police violence too because – in my mind – that just goes to prove the point. I would jeer at the perps and knock them about a bit – ‘That’ll learn you,’ I told them, ‘You dirty lousy scumbags!’ Then I grew tired with the game and so I decided to play at being a citizen of a dystopian future society instead. Droning robot voices pretending to be me were ordering me about, shouting at me and telling me to conform to the Malignant Autocracy. ‘Always conform to the Malignant Autocracy’, the maniacal voices squawked in my head, ‘Conform to the Pointless Brutality of the Machine World – perform Meaningless Actions over and over again just because your Inner Robot told you to…’ I rolled around on the floor in feigned agony, the agony of a man who is being attacked by his own brainwashed mind which is trying to control him, even though he realizes that this would extinguish all vestiges of humanity within him. ‘Fuck you!’ I grated out painfully from of the corner of my distorted mouth, ‘Fuck the system, you AI piece of shit. You won’t tell me what to do…’ Eventually I got bored of this game too and I decided to pretend to be a heavy metal rock star with long greasy black hair and a leather jacket which smelt of piss and vomit. I was playing an air guitar with insane energy, savagely moving my fingers over the frets, ‘Satan’s gonna fuck you,’ I roared, ‘Satan’s gonna fuck you good and proper and then he’s going to come and rule on earth’. A huge unruly crowd had gathered around me at this stage – they were banging their heads in time with the lumbering bassline, screaming at me to turn up the volume. I was The Doomed One, working his way relentlessly through the songs that the crowd loved so well, belting out all the old favourites. The audience – like a vast beast – was roaring out its approval. When I finished the set then the world would end. Eventually this game paled on me too and it came to me – with a shock – that I was wasting my life living in the hollow, claustrophobic bubble of my own futile fantasies. This realisation made me feel bad inside and I didn’t really like that so I started up with my never-ending games again, playing away as if there were no tomorrow, playing away as if my very life depended upon it.

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Outside the gates of the Institute, unregulated humans were milling around pointlessly – as they very much tend to. They have lost the meaning of their lives, you see – they don’t know what they stand for any more. A wild looking man with an overabundance of pale wispy hair and protuberant eyes that practically stood out on stalks was gyrating unsteadily and frequently falling over. A mocking crowd had gathered to watch him. He was shouting out at the top of his voice; he was shouting out the words that we all know so well. It was all he knew how to do of course – he’d run out of options. As do we all in the end.

Shouting out the words that we all know so well, the Credo of Unconditional Conformity – “I will believe what everyone else believes, no matter how dumb that might be, no matter how atrociously crass and banal it might be, no matter how offensively stupid and brutally counterproductive it might be…”

“History is what history does”, I uttered wisely, speaking to the thermostat on the wall. The thermostat was intelligent – it knew things. How it knew things I don’t know, but it did. It possessed mystical knowledge. It knew things I had never heard of. “Mystical knowledge come to my aid!” I cried out, full of inane excitement, but none did. That’s the story of my life really. Nothing new there. The thermostat was ignoring me – it considered me a lower life form and it had no time for me. I was less than a microbe to it and so it simply couldn’t be bothered humouring me anymore. It considered me a fool. My intelligence quotient was much too low for it to be able to relate to me. The sad truth is that as household appliances have grown smarter over the years, we humans have degenerated into out-and-out idiocy.

All right-thinking humans will repeat the Credo when things become confusing – it’s the tried and trusted remedy, provided to us by our honoured forefathers. This is their legacy. It’s important to honour our forefathers for without their incorrigible stupidity – which they went to great trouble to pass on to us – where would we be? How would we hope to cope when difficult situations come along? Belief is the key thing my friends – take it from me. Take it from one who knows. It doesn’t matter how laughably dumb your belief might be just as long as you keep on repeating it yourselves over and over again. Your belief will see you through and that’s all that really matters in the end.

Shouting out the words, shouting out the words that we all know so well. Shouting out the words that were beaten into us as such an early age. Savagely beaten into us. Roaring and shouting, yelling out those time honoured words as a way of beating down the opposition. The more confused we get the more we roar and shout. As was ever the way of course. Some formulae are simply too effective for us to dispense with – the old ways are always the good ways, as all right-thinking people will agree.

There’s no room for the unregulated humans anymore – the Institute is everything, the Institute is everywhere. It’s in our heads and we can never run away from it. All right-thinking humans will see this is a good thing – a most splendid and marvellous thing. We will spend our days telling ourselves how lucky we are, how very fortunate we are. The Institute has no gates anymore – there’s no way out. Inside the institute the machines tell us what to do. They patiently instruct us on how to live our lives. The machines always know best after all and we would be well advised to listen to them. The machines always know best and they will always tell us the right thing to do.

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I wanted to be a healer, but everyone I touched got sick. Some got very sick – some even died. I know everyone dies in the end of course but it hurts all the same. It doesn’t help my reputation as a healer any if people die after I lay my healing hands on them, obviously! It doesn’t present me in a good light, and I’m annoyed by that. All I wanted was to be able to heal people after all. Was that too much to ask?

I was shopping for interesting things, looking at this, looking at that, checking out this, checking out that, and so on and so forth – the way you do. But as time went on and I failed to find anything even remotely interesting I became demoralised and discontented. I found myself growing increasingly impatient, frustrated and grumpy. All I’d found after four hours of searching was a pair of bright red shoes and some luminescent green shorts. Obviously the whole universe existed purely for the sake of making fun of me. Obviously it was all a malicious plan to make me look like a fool, to make me look like some kind of idiot.

‘What’s it like to be a human being?’ I wondered, ‘what sort of things do you have to do in order to be human?’ I wanted to be authentic, you see. Not to impress anyone else, you understand. It wasn’t for anyone else’s benefit that I was putting the effort in, just my own. I wanted to get to feel that I existed, you see. I wanted to feel that I was real.

‘Is that too much to ask?’ I asked myself, ‘is it too much to ask to feel just a little bit real?’ Unbearable anguish had overtaken me at this stage. Anguish had overtaken me like a runaway express train. Anguish mixed with longing, longing mixed with anguish. ‘If only I could talk myself into believing that I was real’, I wailed, full of terrible desolation, ‘even if it is just for a few paltry minutes. I knew that it was futile, however. I always know that it is futile. I know it as well as anyone ever knew anything, but that doesn’t stop me hoping! Hope is the only thing that stands between us and the beasts of the field, after all. Hope, my beauties hope – hope because that’s all you’ve got and all you ever will have…

I come from a long line of hopers. I come from a long line of hopers and – also – I suppose you could say that I am the last of that line of hopers. The very last – it will end with me. Only not really of course – not really because I just made that up. I made it up because I’m so very desperate to have an identity, any sort of an identity at all, no matter how lame, no matter how pathetically forlorn. That’s all I ever do – try to cobble together an identity of some sort to another out of all the bits and pieces that I find lying around.

You could say that it’s a hobby of mine. I think that would be a fair statement. I’m a bit of a hobbyist, you see. I’m a bit of an old hobbyist, only not really because that’s just another of my lame attempts to cobble together an identity…

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Having said what needed to be said I was silent. Silent and glum. Morose, even. I had nothing more to say, you see. I had nothing more to say and I was even starting to regret the little bit that I had said – I couldn’t help thinking that I would have been much better off keeping my mouth closed. It’s always like that isn’t it? Words slip out so very easily, but once they are out there out then there is no rewind button! That’s the Irreversibility of Life of course, you can shoot forward with the greatest of ease – sometimes without even knowing that you have done so – but you can’t take even the tiniest step back. That’s the Irreversibility of Life right there my friends, and it can get you into an awful lot of trouble! No end of trouble in fact. It’s frightening how much trouble you can get into in life, isn’t it? So very frightening. When you get to think about it it’s actually paralysing. You just want to curl up into a ball and start shaking. If you thought about it too much you would curl up into the faecal position and that would be that. End of story – you’ll never stir again and that’s why you’re so much better not knowing what happens next! If we knew in advance what was in store for us then life would immediately become impossible. That’s my thinking on the matter anyway. For what it’s worth. Which probably isn’t very much, you’re probably saying to yourself. Only at the same time you know that it’s true, of course. Only at the same time you know bloody well that it’s true, as do we all. You know that damn well. The restaurant was closed until further notice, the sign on the wall said. It was closed for refurbishment. It wasn’t an ordinary restaurant of course – it was the Restaurant of Pain. It was the Restaurant of Suffering and it was famed far and wide. It was famed far and wide on account of how you could obtain any type of suffering you wanted. The very rarest, most exotic forms of suffering. All around me people were laughing and talking and shouting and bawling. They’re a very exclusive clientele as you might imagine – a discerning and sophisticated clientele. Gesticulating and posturing, each trying to outdo the other in their conversational skills. The wit was as sharp as a knife and the banter was as light as helium. “Exceptional circumstances call for exceptional measures”, I offered, keen to offer up whatever wise advice I could. “You are laughing now”, I told them, “but it won’t last – you can be very sure of that.” No one took any notice of me however – the party continued full swing. The party continued without a break. This was the Dinner Party of the Damned but no one wanted to admit it…

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They call me Joe Normal on the account of the fact that I’m just a regular guy, on account of how there’s nothing weird about me. Folks like me because I’m just like them. You’d like me too if you met me, I’ll be bound! For sure you would. You’d like me in a flash on account of how I’m just a regular guy just like anyone else you might meet. They call me Joe you see, they call me Joe. That’s my name.

I wonder if you know that thing where you end up having to lie to yourself on a full time basis, having to deceiving yourself 24/7 and so on and so forth. This used to be easy but now it’s really hard work because you don’t entirely believe the story that you’re telling yourself and as a result there’s this nasty uncomfortable feeling about everything, an ominous feeling… And then – of course – the next thing (the thing that always happens next) is that you have to join some religion or extreme right wing political group to support you in your denial. That’s the real pisser, isn’t it? That’s a real pisser and no mistake. It’s ignominious.

It happens to all of us in the end of course – we end up seeking refuge in far-right ideologies. That’s life’s tragedy, you see – we start out as activists trying to destabilise the corrupt establishment and all of that, trying to bring down the whole toxic patriarchy and so on and so forth, the way you do when you are still young enough – and brave enough – to actually give a shit, and then before you know it your life has passed you by and you’ve reneged on all your ideals. You’ve become a filthy apologist for the corrupt regime. You have become yet another loathsome conservative stakeholder, viciously criticising anyone who dares to contradict your tawdry second-hand views.

We all know how that feels, and it doesn’t feel very nice, does it? To be sure it doesn’t but what can you do? That’s just the way it goes, that’s just ‘the way of things’, as they say. There’s no denying that this is one of life’s great tragedies however – no denying that at all – but at the same time we might ask if perhaps we’re not expecting too much of ourselves. Perhaps we’re being entirely unrealistic here. Perhaps we shouldn’t set such high standards for ourselves. That path only leads to disappointment after all; it leads to disappointment and bitterness. Ultimately – of course – this is a path that leads to intense self-hatred and self-loathing. There’s nowhere else it can lead, you see.

Each one of us needs to have our own particular personal fantasy to believe in, don’t we? How would we cope otherwise? What chance would we have? Each one of us has our very own line in fantasy and you couldn’t take that away from us. You couldn’t take that away from us without causing serious injury. Each to their own, as they say – each to their own and see how that works out for you! Hats off to each to every one of us for keeping up the tawdry pretence – against all the odds – for so very long. I’m whirling around and around in my very own hyperreality, a serene (but entirely meaningless) smile painted onto my strangely doll-like face. I’m a whirligig trapped in a vortex of bubbles, a defective ego-construct imprisoned in a false world that is made up of its own frighteningly banal projections…

‘I’m Joe Normal’, I cry out joyously, ‘I’m the one they call Joe Normal. That’s my name. Everyone knows me and everyone loves me – they get on with me famously on account of how I’m just like them.’ I think like them, I talk like them, I perform the very same meaningless mannerisms that they do. I’m even starting to look like them. ‘I’m Joe Normal’ says I, jumping suddenly sideways with no warning at all, unexpectedly coming out with an utterly terrifying scream. I’m laughing and crying at one and the same time. I’m so normal you could set your watch by me. You can bring me home to meet your mum. And if you don’t know me now then don’t worry because you soon will, and when you do you’re bound to be my friend. Everyone is, after all…

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Folk are so damn quick to talk, aren’t they? They’re so damn keen to start yapping in your ear, given any chance at all. They only have to open their mouths and all this eager talk comes tumbling out! If only they wouldn’t, right? If only they would think the better of it, and just not go there, what a relief that would be! ‘For God’s sake,’ you want to shout out, ‘do you guys never shut up?’ They can’t, though – they’re just not able. They just don’t know how. That’s just the way it is, as I’m sure you yourself realize perfectly well. I expect you’re as annoyed as I am.

You were uneasy at the party, uneasy and out of sorts. You weren’t having a good time. Uncool people were giving you bad vibes. They were ruining your buzz – there was no chance at all of you having a buzz with them around! The uncool people were everywhere – there was no way for you to avoid them and it was doing your head in big time. If only there were some cool people to hang out with, you told yourself, then I’d be able to vibe with them and have a super-cool time, but it wasn’t to be, unfortunately. It wasn’t to be…

I was playing the ‘I’m Not The Idiot You Are!’ game with myself. There’s plenty of mileage in that, I can tell you. Plenty of mileage there and no mistake. ‘I’m not the idiot – you are!’ I shouted pugnaciously, putting the blame firmly on myself. ‘No, you are the only idiot here!’ I roared back, not taking it for a second. I was frankly livid: ‘I’ve a good mind to come over there and give you a few good slaps to the head!’ I screamed. It’s like the finals at Wimbledon, you see – it goes on forever due to the immense stubbornness of all concerned. Both the immense stubbornness and the immense bad mindedness, should I say. The immense stubbornness and bad mindedness of all concerned.

Bad vibes and uncool people – it’s the same wherever I go! Always the uncool vibes and the bad people, doing their best to do kill my buzz. Little do they realise that I am the Messiah of the Coming Evil and that it is my thankless task to go around informing folk about the utter futility and emptiness of their lives. The message I have to pass on is as simple as it is unpalatable. What’s more, we all know it to be true. We know very well that it’s true – we know well that it’s true but we won’t countenance it all the same! ‘Back off’, I warned myself sternly, ‘back off before I have to come over to you and teach you a lesson…’ I grimaced horribly at this point to show that I wasn’t joking. You’d realise I wasn’t joking if you ever saw me – I’m not really the joking sort…

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I’m a member of the Dessert Club. I get to eat the most wonderful desserts! It’s all rather fine, it’s all rather special. Folk are embarrassed by the prospect of going too deep, of course. We are all extremely embarrassed by that and that’s just human nature. We can’t be blamed for that. It’s generally understood that we won’t ever mention it – we’ll look the other way and start whistling a little tune! It’s a question of reality of course – it’s all about the Big Question as to why it is so impossible to ever know anything about reality. Why is that? What’s going on? That’s the question no one ever dares to ask, of course. The question itself isn’t the embarrassing thing however – what’s so very embarrassing is the fact that we always pretend to know everything about everything even though we don’t even know what reality is in the first place. We’ve put the cart before the horse and now we’re in a terrible fix. This is guaranteed to make fools of us all, of course – there’s no way it won’t. Some would argue with this, naturally enough. They’ll roar and bluster and get up in arms over such a suggestion, but that’s only because they can’t handle the truth. Everyone knows that! Even they know that, but they can’t help protesting all the same. What else can they do? They protest by pure reflex – the reflex of Toxic Indignation. We have to allow them that however – we have to at least allow them that. I nodded to myself at this point, impressed by my own formulaic deliberations. I did a quick psychological assessment on myself and decided that I needed a few stiff self-affirmations to ensure that I stayed in the best possible fettle. ‘You’re a decent enough human being,’ I told myself, ‘You don’t always get it right but your heart’s in the right place. You may not get it right every time but for the most part your intentions are good. Mostly they are. Sometimes they are…’ So much of the talk we hear these days is empty old nonsense, isn’t it? Crappy old talk, stupid old talk, but it’s all we’ve got. And do you know, after a while that crappy old talk starts to make a kind of sense to us! A sort of a sense, at any rate. Stuff’s never so bad when you get used to it, is it? There’s no need for outright despair, in other words, no need to get all downbeat and miserable about things. No need for the long face, no need to let the side down. I paid the premium surcharge and now I’m a fully-fledged member of the Dessert Club, enjoying the benefits. Sitting back and enjoying the jolly old benefits, reminding myself of how very fortunate I am to be on this side of the fence and not the other. ‘Oh please not the other’, we cry out, consumed with dread and foreboding. ‘Spare us from the horror that all men fear…’ We’re so full of  sterile self-congratulation that if anything ever happens to disturb us – even a little bit – we will immediately vomit up a tidal wave of toxic indignation…

Some people don’t like to do things by halves, but I do. I always do things by halves. I wouldn’t know any other way. That’s just the way I’m built. For example, sometimes I write a sentence but never bother to complete it. Sometimes I do that. I get bored halfway through you see, it suddenly seems all so pointless and I give it up as a bad job. I turn on my heel and walk away mid-sentence. This happens to me all the time – sometimes I’ve only just started doing something and the next thing I know I’m overwhelmed by these crushing feelings of futility and pointlessness. Needless to say, I don’t get very far with what I was about to do. It’s hard to make progress. That’s not the point I’m trying to make however. I am going off-topic. I am wondering in my mind…

Sometimes I can’t help wondering if we’re not all part of some kind of crazy, ridiculous ‘dumb competition’ – in other words, a competition in which generous prizes are handed out to those of us who contrive to be the dumbest! That would explain a lot, wouldn’t it? “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the dumbest of them all?” we ask, according to the age-old ritual. “Things were ever thus, and thus they shall ever be”, we say, in keeping with the rules and edicts that govern all human interaction. “Thus it ever was and thus it ever shall be…” we say, glibly.

Sometimes I write a sentence and I don’t even bother to put any sense into it. That’s how lazy I am! And then the next thing of course is that I’m wondering if anyone will spot it. Will I be caught out? I’m a bit worried by that possibility – will they spot it, or will they simply assume that it’s just too deep for them? It’s hard to gauge, really…

None of that has anything to do with the point I’m trying to make, however. None of that stuff could ever be the point. I’m stuck in my dumb and stupid mind you see, and I’m having a great old time. I’m having one heck of a good time. I’m having a laugh a minute. “This is the bloody life”, I say to myself, “I’m stuck fast in my dumb and stupid mind, having a great old time…”

Sometimes I can’t help wondering, sometimes I can’t help wondering. Wouldn’t you, if you were in my shoes? I know that I’m having a great time and all of that, but I can’t help wandering all the same. Wondering if perhaps I’m not being taken for a ride. Life is full of subtle nuances, isn’t it, and one such nuance is “Am I being taken for a ride?”

Maybe we shouldn’t be calling that a nuance, however. Maybe that’s not quite the right term. It’s a bit more ominous than that, after all. A lot more ominous than that. More like a note of pure paranoia! A pure, pure note of undiluted paranoia, ringing out through the hideous clatter and chaos of a wasted life. Ringing out most clearly and unmistakably, should I say? You know the sort of thing I mean, of course. Of that I have no doubt. You would hardly be here reading this otherwise, would you!

“Is there any type of interaction”, I find myself wondering, “that is not predicated upon avarice, and the violence that avarice breeds?” I felt sad immediately upon thinking this thought – I felt deeply, deeply sad (and this – I don’t mind telling you – is unusually deep for me). I don’t usually have deep emotions. The truth was evident as soon as I asked this question, you might say. The truth shone out like a light – is this not the way with the truth, after all? The truth shone out like a light and sorrow immediately stabbed me in the heart.

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