Horror World

We live in a horror world, don’t we? Let’s not pretend! I know pretending is ‘the big thing’, I know pretending is the correct thing to do and all, but let’s just skip it, just this once. It’s OK to skip pretending every now and again you know, for God’s sake. What’s it all about anyway? What’s it all about if you can’t skip pretending every now and again? This is an out-and-out horror world we live in, and not because of global warming or war or because of Monsanto making everyone buy Roundup (although God knows that’s bad enough). That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the world which we see represented to us every day; the world we are inevitably confronted with wherever we look. I’m talking about the ‘stated world’, as we might call it. We don’t really need to make a big song and dance about this do we? I know I’m kind of making a point and all that but I find myself embarrassed at the same time; I find myself being embarrassed in case I might come across as being rather crass. It’s always crass when someone makes a point, isn’t it? I suppose it is unavoidably crass because in making a point we are automatically assuming that we need to make it, obviously. We are automatically assuming that the other person is dumb in some way, right? So I guess I’m making a point here too (I’m making a point about making points) and so at the same time am assuming that you don’t know the point that I am making, I am assuming that you need me to make it for you so that you can understand it properly. I’m taking you for a bit of a dumb-arse in other words, and now that I reflect on this I feel a bit embarrassed. It’s kind of hard to avoid, all the same. I’m not quite sure what to do about it. Life’s so tricky when you think about it, isn’t it? So tricky, so tricky, so very very tricky. Anyway, I’m going to abandon this whole line of reflection and just get on with it. I’m getting impatient with myself at this stage and that’s never a good sign! Can we exist for ourselves, I wonder, or do we have to exist for others? Can we only exist in their eyes, or in their thoughts, and if so what a terrible calamity that would be! I’m trying to be funny of course but it’s just not working. I’m trying too hard perhaps, and that always ruins everything. Trying too hard, trying too hard, you sad pathetic little bastard. First we make a little world for ourselves and then we live in it, isn’t that the way it is? Firstly make a little world for ourselves, which is delightful, and then we get stuck in it, which is not. Being stuck in the little world that we have so cleverly made for ourselves is very far from being ‘delightful’, as I’m sure you’ll agree. It’s a fuck-up of cosmic proportions. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s OK after all, even though it’s a fuck-up of cosmic proportions. Even though it’s a fuck-up we never saw coming; we never saw it coming because we never figured that it would rebound on us in the way that it did. We never figured anything at all actually, did we? We never figured anything. We just did it. People think talking is interesting, don’t they? That only just occurred to me a a minute ago, listening to the people across from me here in the coffee shop. Talking away happily the way people do. But what I mean is, what I am remarking upon, is the general fact that folk find the content of their own conversations to be very interesting even though it clearly isn’t. I mean – let’s face it – most people’s conversation is about as interesting as a living room wall covered with three or four coats of Magnolia paint! If we were to be honest, if we were to be honest. There’s something appalling about the content of conversations that one has inadvertently overheard, just as there is something appalling about a Magnolia living room. And yet – evidently – people find the content of their own conversations to be extraordinarily interesting. They are totally absorbed, totally engrossed. Just as if they were coming out some really good stuff there. So what’s that all about, that’s what I want to know! Just what the hell is that all about?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *