Something was trying to get through to me – something very strong, something very persistent. I instinctively knew that it would wear me down in the end, resist it though I might. It was reality of course. It always is, isn’t it? What the hell is it with reality anyway? What’s its beef? What is the big idea with this reality business – surely reality realizes by now that we don’t need it? You think it would get the hint now wouldn’t you? ‘Look buddy, can’t you see that no one wants you here? You’re not popular with a lot of folk in these parts and that’s just the way it is. No hard feelings now…’

And the funny thing was that it was never my life anyway. With hindsight I can see this quite clearly. I can see it with startling clarity. At the time of course I thought it was my life and this particular misapprehension rather changes our outlook on things. It always does, it inevitably does. That’s a mistake we all make though, isn’t it? Show me someone who isn’t making this mistake right now – that’s a person I’d very much like to meet! I can’t get my head around this idea at all, not even a little bit can I get my head round it. What must that feel like – to realise in the moment (not just in retrospect) that it isn’t you living your life? How could anyone even begin to imagine what that would feel like?

It’s different – sometimes – when you look back on some event in your life. You look back and think that never actually happened to me. I was never actually there.  But then the next thought is: ‘if I wasn’t there then I where was I?’ That’s a weird moment, isn’t it? An uncanny moment. It’s as if you weren’t anywhere. You know you weren’t anywhere. You know you never were anywhere, not ever.  So the next thing is – of course – is that you set to work to compute that, you set to work trying to figure it out. ‘How exactly does that work?’ you ask yourself. You’re trying to get your head around it: ‘I was never there’, you say to yourself. Someone else was living my life for me, was always living my life for me. There is that knowledge. Although right now, right at this very moment, it seems to me that I am living this life – absolutely it feels that I am living this life. There is that  very familiar feeling of pressure – that sense of pressure we’re all working under: ‘Get it right,’ the pressure says. ‘Don’t screw up for God’s sake – whatever you do, don’t screw up…’

But if I’m not living this life then what’s all this pressure about? What’s all this anxiety about – who’s going to screw it up anyway? What the hell is the point of all this pressure? That’s a funny one to think about alright – what’s the point of the pressure, what’s the point of the pressure? Where’s the need for it? So how do you get your head around that one? ‘I was never there and someone else was living my life for me’. At the time living life seemed like a problem. Always a problem. Sometimes it’s too much of a problem, sometimes it crushes you completely. You’re worried about doing the right thing. You’re worried that you might do the wrong thing, just like you always do the wrong thing. You’re worried that you’ll mess it up. You’re worried sick; you’re anxious all the time. And then the event passes and you worry about something else instead. Over and over again. One thing after another until one day you reach the end of all things…

We were all very proud of ourselves back then – we were proud of being arrogant, proud of being dumb. Immensely proud of our arrogance and dumbness – impenetrably and impregnably proud of our fantastical stupidity, the like of which you cannot imagine, the like of which you could not even dream of… Full of perversity, we wore our ignorance as a badge of honour. We were an unmannerly crew and no mistake, but life has a cunning way of correcting such matters! Such arrogance as ours has only one purpose and that is to be duly corrected. The greater the arrogance the bigger the correction that is needed; the more fantastically impregnable the stupidity the more pertinent the lesson must be. The one exists in proportion to the other of course. All is harmony, all is harmony. Don’t worry, don’t fret, the harmony of which I speak is unbreakable! You couldn’t break it if you tried. You couldn’t fake it if you cried…