I saw a factory and I said ‘I used to work in that factory’. I saw a house and I said ‘I used to live in that house’. I saw a man doing a job and I said ‘I used to do that job’. I saw a tree and I said ‘I climbed that tree once’. If someone is reading a book then I’ll interrupt them and tell them, ‘I’m in that book!’ If there’s a news bulletin on the TV I’ll shout ‘That bulletin is about me’…

I was in everything. I am in everything. It’s like that joke about the Englishman, the Irishman and the Scotsman all arguing about who is the most famous. It’s me. I’m the most famous. I’m in that joke. I’m in every joke there ever was! I’m in everything…

So how does it feel to be so damn famous, you might ask? Is it a good buzz? It’s natural to be curious I suppose so I can’t blame you for that. It’s not what you think though. You can’t really imagine what it’s like and I don’t know if there’s any point in me trying to explain it to you. The thing is you see there’s a very big difference between relative and absolute fame. There’s a tremendous difference. I don’t actually like the word ‘fame’ but I’ll carry on using it I guess until I can think of something better. It’s kind of half-way right at least.

Relative fame is of course the type of fame everyone knows about and is always competing for. So tiresome isn’t it – people and their ceaseless greedy struggling for their share of the limelight! For more than their share, I should say! I don’t just want my share, I want everyone else’s too. I want your share – I want the air you breathe. I want you to be thrust unceremoniously into the ignominy of nonentity where no one has ever heard of you and no one ever will. That’s where I want you to stay.

‘It’s not enough that I be famous, others must be thrust into the wretched ignominy of non-personhood’, as we could also say! Rephrasing that familiar quote, which is something we are quite entitled to do. If we so please.

We are memes competing for attention and it’s ‘all or nothing’ in this game – what do you call a meme that doesn’t manage to get any attention, after all? You see what I’m getting at here, of course. You take my meaning. I don’t have to spell it for you, do I?

We all need attention in order to exist when it comes down to it – that’s what this whole squalid business is about. And how very squalid it is! You can’t tell me that it doesn’t disgust you to think about it because I know that it does. It disgusts us all, and there’s no point trying to pretend otherwise. It is a thoroughly nauseating business. How could we allow ourselves to live in such a fashion? How can we bear to have let ourselves sink so very low?

That’s ‘relative fame’ for you – a sordid, squalid affair no matter how you look at it. And that’s the principal human preoccupation. All human egos are deeply obsessed with the need to obtain relative fame. And all inhuman egos too, for that matter. But I’m not talking about ‘relative fame’, I’m talking about ‘absolute fame’, which is something entirely different.

‘Absolute fame’ doesn’t have to compete in a squalid fashion for territory – all territory belongs to it. Absolute fame is the fame of Reality itself. Is reality famous, I hear you ask? ‘Well, it should be’, I reply snidely with a condescending chuckle – if Reality isn’t worthy of fame, then what is?’