I am a wanderer, a nomad, a roamer of the wide empty spaces I tell myself. A free spirit. Marching to the beat of my own drum. Then I realize that I am being ridiculously self-deluding. It comes to me in a flash – I can see myself for the dishonest coward that I am. I am the plaything of mechanical forces, nothing more. A speck of chaff blown this way and that. Blown madly in a gale. Driven this way and that way by all-powerful karmic forces, forces that are entirely beyond my comprehension. All that I am is determined by these mechanical forces – everything I think and everything I do. Even my lies are determined mechanically. Especially the lies…

Everything I do I do because I am made to it, compelled to do it. Chaff doesn’t have a choice! Everything about me is a resultant of whatever external forces happen to be working on me at the time. I’m a resultant, not a free agent. I am obedient to nonsense, obedient to fault. Automatically obedient. Certainly no free spirit. It’s not my drum beat I’m marching to at all, its the mechanical drum beat! I’m not a wanderer but a drifter – a piece of flotsam washed this way and that by every wave that comes along. I can never settle. I can never rest. I can never rest because the mechanical forces that rule my life never tire of playing of playing with me. When the strings that control me pull then I twitch obediently like the good little puppet I am. I can’t wait to twitch – I jump at the chance.

I am in the Kudos Bar, my favourite place, my cool place, the place that I go to when I want to feel good about myself. I am ordering breakfast. Joking with the barman. Appreciating the sophisticated ambience. Reading the newspaper. At ease in myself. In the place where I go when I need refuge from the unkind vissicitudes of life. My safe place. In the Kudos Bar. Only it’s all just a mental projection. Every bit of it. The breakfast that is now arriving. The barman. The table and chairs. The group of women sitting chatting at the nearby table. Having the craic. They are all my own projections, my own constructs.

I am totally in control here in the Kudos Bar. Nothing happens that I do not want to happen. There’s only me and my projections here, in this safe space. Nothing else is allowed. It’s all scripted and I am the script writer. Only I’m not really. I kid myself that I am, however. That’s the comforting lie that I keep on telling myself. I tell myself that I’m in control. I tell myself that all the time. It feels good to be in control. Good, but also very bad. Very bad, but also good.

Outside the friends are calling for me. Calling, calling, calling. They are calling all the time. I can hear them calling. They never stop. They want me to go out and play with them. They never give up calling for me. Calling, calling, calling. Calling all the time. I do my best to ignore them, to pretend that they’re not there. I’m afraid of the friends…