I remember the first time I bought The Product. Boy was that something else! If only I could recapture that moment – which I never can, of course! Everyone knows you can’t recapture that very first time. Who doesn’t know that? Show me someone who doesn’t know that you can’t recapture that very first time! That’s a basic principle. No one could be that stupid, no one could be that ignorant. No one could be that naïve about The Basic Facts of Life…
The whole point of everything is that you can never revisit that very first time! That moment was so epic, so stupendously beyond anything you could ever have imagined – and you’ll never ever be able to have it back again! What a pisser, huh? What a complete and utter bummer… And that means of course that it’s only ever going to get better and better in your imagination. Naturally it does – what else would you expect? Talk about nostalgia, talk about ‘rose-tinted spectacles’! The fact that you can never repeat the experience (or even come close) means that it’s guaranteed to get better and better in your memory of it. It becomes part of your own private mythology, right? You don’t need to tell me about that – I know all about the mythologizing of that first hit. Man oh man do I ever know about it… Recounting it over and over again in front of an appreciative audience. Lovingly embellishing the details…
We’ve all been around the block a few times at this stage, am I right? We’re all wise to the way of things. We all know the score. We all know that it’s totally impossible to ever revisit that very first time. We understand the point that is being made. We understand that this is how life works; we understand the quintessential irreversibility of the process, but this knowledge doesn’t stop us trying to get back there! No sir it doesn’t. Knowing that we can’t get back there doesn’t stop us trying at all and that too is simply ‘how the process works’! That’s simply the nature of things and it’s no good fighting against it. Understanding that it isn’t going to happen never stopped anyone, did it? Let’s be honest here; let’s not be bullshitting each other. There’s enough bullshit in the world without us adding to it…
We’re always trying to get back there, wouldn’t you say? That’s all we care about really, if the truth were to be known (and I for one am not afraid to tell it). ALL of our efforts are, ultimately, directed towards getting that original experience back again. All of our efforts are directed towards that end for the simple reason that nothing else can hold a candle to it! How could it? How could anything compare to that? You know damn well that it couldn’t. Don’t try to fool yourself! Everything else in life is but a pale reflection and pale imitations just won’t cut the mustard! You don’t need me to tell you that. We’re all the same in that regard – when we’re chasing a hit we know well that it will never compare to the original but we go ahead with it anyway in honour of that original moment. That’s how we honour the Sacred Memory; in chasing the next hit we are doing homage to the myth. It’s a kind of a private ritual – we all understand that, right? Of course we do…
The Product’s good, my friends, no doubt about that. The Product’s the best. It’s better than Coca Cola, it’s better than Pepsi, it’s better than McDonalds or Kentucky Fried Chicken or Ford Cars or Levis or Wranglers or Estee Lauder. It’s better than anything. It’s the memory of that experience – when we first bought The Product – that makes us who we are today. It’s that memory that defines us. That’s why we dedicate our lives to the sacred ritual of ‘chasing the hit’ in the way that we do – even though the hits have long since got so crappy that they’re not really worth the effort in chasing them….
