The predators always know it when your sense of yourself has a crack in it. Of course they know it – it’s their business to. I’m trying to come up with any word of advice at all that I might have for anyone who is new to this place. Any word at all, any hint at all. Some bit of wisdom that could help, no matter how small, no matter how tattered it might be. It’s good to be helpful isn’t it? Someone might appreciate that. If they’re not eaten first.

 

Where’s ‘here’? What’s this gobshyte talking about this time, you’re probably thinking. I can help you there. I can tell you what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the predator universe. I’m talking about what life’s like here in the predator universe. What to expect here. I don’t want to give the wrong impression by using this term – it’s not that the universe itself is a predator (although that might at times seem like a good hypothesis) – it’s just that predation of one sort or another is the rule here. That’s what tends to go on. It’s very much the name of the game, so to speak. It’s how things work.

 

Specifically, the way things work is that if there is any sort of power differential – and there always is one way or another – then it will be unfailingly exploited. It will be exploited to the hilt as a matter of course. Perhaps I’m not making myself clear enough here – there’s always a moment of appraisal when one dweller within the predator universe meets another, fellow dweller within the predator universe and in that moment of appraisal the ‘power-differential’ that I’m talking about here gets to be known. The cards are laid out on the table. If there’s a weakness then that weakness is unfailingly registered and then the step that inevitably follows on from this is the mechanical exploitation of that weakness.

 

I’m still not making myself clear enough, I know. It’s as I have already said – if there is any fault-line in your sense of yourself, your image of yourself, your concept of yourself, then this fault, this weakness will be ruthlessly taken advantage of. With consequences that are to your detriment, naturally. That being the way of things in the predator universe…

 

We all hold ourselves together by having some sort of ‘belief’ in ourselves. I can’t think of any other way of putting it. What we’re believing in doesn’t actually have to be real – in fact it never is when it comes down to it – but we do have to be totally convinced that it is. It’s the strength of our belief that counts, not what we believe in. If we don’t question ourselves then we’re immune to attack, we’re impregnable. There’s no fault-line, no weakness, no crack in our sense of ourselves…

 

The trouble is of course that we very often get our idea of ourselves compromised from an early age. There are always a lot of predators around you see and some of them might be our parents. Sometimes our own parents are predators and what are we supposed to do about that? When parents choose to eat their young there’s not much the young can do about it.

 

I’m still not getting to the point – the point I keep trying to make. The point is this – whenever two individuals meet there is a clash of realities. It’s one reality against the other and the strongest one wins. The strongest one gets to eat the weaker. This is all about control – it’s a tussle, it’s a wrestling match to see who gets to control reality. Maybe it was Nietzsche who said that it is those who have the power who get to say what reality is, who get to say what is true and what isn’t true. That sounds like something Nietzsche would say.

 

If I have the power then you are always wrong. Even if you’re right you’re wrong. Even if I’m wrong I’m going to make out that it’s you who are wrong. You not me. You’re always the fuckup. You’re always wrong – you’re to blame for everything, including the fact that I’m exploiting you. You willingly take the blame upon yourself as I predate you. You take full responsibility for me predating you. I myself am blameless, I myself can do no wrong. I can do no wrong because I am the one who controls reality.

 

Sounds familiar? It ought to because that’s the way things work here in the predator universe and you’re in it…