I was happy and successful so I took a selfie. ‘Take a selfie, take a selfie, take a selfie…’ my treacherous brain cells were telling me. My lethally treacherous brain cells. They’ll tell you anything, did you know that? Those treacherous old brain cells.They’ll bloody tell you anything…

I was out and about, busily validating myself. Out in the big bad world, out in the wild wet beyond. Doing my thing, trying to generate the appropriate level of personal validation for myself. ‘That’s some job,’ I hear you say, ‘how did you manage that?’ Well, I’m smart enough, you see. I know what’s what when it comes to the old self-validation. I know a few things all right.

What I did is that I went and stood by the side of the road holding up a big placard that said ‘I am a valid human being’. Getting the message across. Plenty of people saw it as they drove by I can tell you! They got the message loud and clear all right – I can tell you that for nothing.

When I came back home I posted a few home-made memes on Facebook, explaining that just because people think you’re not valid, that doesn’t necessarily mean a thing. Just because some people might think (or say) that you’re not a significant and important human being that isn’t necessarily going to be the case at all. That’s called ‘educating people’ you see. That’s called ‘raising awareness’ – putting the old memes out there, putting the jolly old memes out there.

“My brain cells told me to do it,” I told the magistrate. I was refusing to take responsibility of course. That’s the usual story – I’m always refusing to take responsibility. That’s not my fault though…

I was full of excuses. I was a mass of excuses – I couldn’t come out with them fast enough! I was like a human machine-gun. I was being led to the place of judgement. It’s a recurring dream of mine – there I am, being led – very unwillingly (needless to say) – to the place of judgement. The air is thick with my excuses. I was like a writhing worm trying to wriggle its way off the hook. Desperately trying to avoid having to take any responsibility.

I was writhing like a carrier bag full of live eels. Like a black bin liner full of eels on methedrine. I was going to say, ‘like a black bin liner full of eels on methadone’ but they wouldn’t be quite so lively in that case, would they? That wouldn’t be the same thing at all.

Writhing, writhing, writhing and you know that it’s only a matter of time before the bag bursts asunder under all that frantic pressure. You never saw so much writhing in all your life and so now you’re frightened. You’re worried that bad things might start happening.

“Suppose you die,” my mind told me insistently, “yes, yes, yes, suppose you die – what will you do then?” You’re hooked on the mind’s narrative now and you can’t let go. You can’t get away. You’re hooked good and proper. You’re going crazy; your mind is going back-and-forth, back-and-forth, frantically trying to come up with an answer. ‘That’s put the cat amongst the pigeons,’ your mind says to itself, full of grim satisfaction. ‘That’s put the jolly old cat amongst the pigeons and no mistake’…

‘Five things confident people never do’ the advert on my laptop screen is telling me. Don’t you know want to know what those five things are? Then you can not do them too, you can not do them too…