The Kingdom of Lies

Man-mirror-hatred

I had been disloyal to the group mind. I could have kicked myself. I wanted to kick myself. I could very easily have punched myself in the face, if it were not for the fact that I was worried about people looking at me and thinking me strange. How could you have been disloyal to the group mind, I swore at myself. You fuck. You bastard. You worthless little piece of shit…

 

I called myself every bad name under the sun. The group mind had asked so little and it gave so much – it gave inauthenticity and where would we be without inauthenticity? We’d be forced to be real… The group mind gives us our insincerity and how would we cope with life without that? We’d have to be honest with each other! It gives us the satisfaction of acting out our mean-minded prejudices on a daily basis without ever feeling in the least bit bad about ourselves. And that’s worth more than gold…

 

The sense of shame I was feeling went off the scale. I loathed myself with a passion. I truly hated myself – no punishment could do justice to what I had just done. I wanted to stab myself in the leg with an infected hypodermic syringe. I wanted to tear at my own face with my finger nails until there was no skin left. I wanted to bite lumps of flesh out of myself. I could not believe that I had been so disloyal after everything the group mind had done to help me.

 

The group mind asks so little – it simply asks that we disown ourselves, that we betray ourselves at every opportunity. It merely asks us to conform unthinkingly to the mediocre and the nonsensical. It asks only that we betray ourselves at every turn and persecute the hell out of anyone who shows the slightest sign of not having done so themselves. It asks so very little and gives so much in return. It provides us – with its infinite generosity – with a whole world of inauthenticity. A whole world of inauthenticity to do with as we please…

 

It provides us with the Kingdom of Lies within which to feel safe, within which to feel protected. It has given us a world of falsehoods within which we can happily entertain ourselves for ever. A world that we will never lose interest in. A world full of charismatic TV personalities and smiling celebrities, world cup finals and dream holidays; a world replete with superheroes and weekend breaks, supermarkets and medical insurance, income tax inspectors and market analysts, educational psychologists and motivational speakers.

 

And I had gone and betrayed it. I had gone and been my true self…

 

 

 

 

 

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