Every ego is a broken ego, even the brash and shiny super-confident egos are broken. They’re the most broken of all, in some ways. In lots of ways. The brash and shiny super-confident egos are definitely the most broken of all. ‘What can be done for them?’ I ask myself, feigning concern. I couldn’t care less really of course. I have spent a lifetime identifying with one broken ego after another and where has it got me? What have I got to show for it? Fear was my middle name though and I never had a choice. All I ever knew was fear; all I ever knew was cringing weakness in the face of mild to moderate adversity. Looking back, I can see now that it was all an uphill struggle. A new defeat lay in wait for me around every corner. And what made it worse was that I knew it wasn’t supposed to be like that – I knew I was doing it all wrong. I wasn’t following the script. And then all those brashly confident egos that you are inevitably going to be up against – it’s not enough that they are brash, they also have to be abrasive. They abrade and abrade, all they know is how to abrade. It’s an abrasive world that we live in – it’ll take the flesh right off your bones. Unless you’re one of the brash ones, that is. It’s ‘abrade or be abraded’, it’s the law of the jungle. I’m labouring the point of course. I always labour the point. It’s like I don’t know where I’m going with it so I keep on rehashing on rehashing what I’m saying in the hope that it’ll all come clear. If only I can buy myself enough time. It’s all about buying time, buying time. The point is abundantly obvious however – all the bloody old egos are broken, the ones that are abrasive and the ones that are abraded, the brash ones and the ones that are eaten away from the inside with corrosive self-doubt, the ones that are always relentlessly punishing themselves. Every ego is a broken ego, every success story reeks of decay and corruption. That’s the tragedy of success, I suppose you could say. We see it on all sides, it’s paraded in front of our noses over and over again and we’re supposed to clap and cheer. We are supposed to rejoice in it. The success story of the triumphant ego. Shouting out loud. Roaring out your success. Ascending the stairway of glory – ego glory, that is, folks. The ultimate triumph of the appallingly deteriorated ego. And we are forced to identify with it every step of the way, through thick and through thin. And it’s all thin. So frighteningly thin. The veneer has come off a long long time ago and we’re in a very different territory now. We are in the territory of the ego when all the veneer has rubbed away but we have to carry on all the same. We have no choice but to carry on – as grotesquely repellent as that might be. You’ve started and so now you’re going to have to finish – only does it ever finish? Does it finish or does it just go on and on forever? Through the good times and the bad times only they’re all bad times really. Shouting out your triumph. Roaring as you have never roared before. ‘What can be done to help these poor old egos?’ I ask, pretending as best I can that I actually care. Which needless to say I don’t. You’ve started and so now you’re just going to have to finish. Just don’t expect me to give a shit…