I’m under water. I’m walking under water. Progress is slow, needless to say – progress is very slow. Progress is awfully slow – which is to say, there actually isn’t any. No progress, no progress at all. I’m underwater, many fathoms deep. Way down at the bottom of the sea – in an ocean trench. No light down here – very very dark indeed. It’s as murky as hell and the pressure is absolutely immense, many tons per square inch. Several tons per square inch and it is dark as hell down here into the bargain. You can’t see your hand in front of your face. It’s a dark place, a very dark place…

So anyway, we were all converted into egos, we were all converted into selves, and that was the big big joke. Such a funny joke, right? Not such a funny joke at all really, of course. You don’t hear anyone laughing, after all, do you? Instead, there is only slow-motion horror, horror like wading with wellies through a swimming pool full of glycerine when you’re being chased by the devil! Being chased by the devil on methedrine because he’s always on methedrine. We on the other hand are all floundering around in a state of turgid, ponderous, permanent confusion and the prognosis isn’t particularly good. That’s a euphemism, by the way. How do you cure someone from being an ego, after all? They would be offended if you tried. They would be offended to be even diagnosed as such. “What you mean I’m an ego?” they will retort coldly, in a terrible huff, “How dare you suggest such a thing…”

Vicious nasty cantankerous egos sniping at each other, griping at each other, moaning and whinging at each other. Toxic little egos looking for a chance to stick the knife in – holding onto their meaningless ridiculous resentments year after year, decade after decade, growing more and more malicious, more and more vindictive as time goes by. They hate each other of course, they hate each other more than words can tell and yet there’s nothing to choose between them. There as alike as peas in a pod, they’re all as bad as each other! They’re as alike as eggs in a basket, only they’re bad eggs. Bad bad eggs. Very bad eggs…

It’s as murky as hell down here at the bottom of the sea; I’ve got my diving suit on and it feels like it’s made of lead. Maybe it is. The effort involved in putting one foot in front of the other is enough to bring me to the point of despair and yet this is just one thing amongst many. My troubles are too many to point at. Progress is cruelly slow down here at the bottom of the ocean, as I believe I have already said. To put one foot in front of the other taxes me beyond what I can endure and yet endure it I must. Endure it I must. This is conditioned existence you see, and what can we do about that? What could any of us do about that?

There is no cure for being an ego you see and that’s the sad thing about it. People like to talk as if there is a cure but they’re only fooling themselves. That’s only the ego talking, when it comes down to it. That’s all just ego talk and we have all had heard enough of that, haven’t we? We have all heard more than enough of that. We invent a fate for ourselves and then we are obliged to fulfil that fate – isn’t that always the way? We pull an ugly face and the wind changes direction and then we are obliged to go around wearing that face for the rest of our days. Why did we do it, you ask? Why did we pull that freakishly ugly face? What had got into us? There’s none of us can answer that question however, I’m afraid to say. There’s none of us can answer that…

Conditioned existence as a drag, isn’t it? Conditioned existence is a hideous ordeal and I don’t expect anyone to deny that. I don’t expect anyone in the audience to put up their hand and say “Excuse me Sir but I beg to differ there!” There is no one here about to do that now is there? Very obviously there is no one here about to do that and I think we can all be in agreement on that point…