I was doing the happy things, so I could be happy again. ‘Do the happy things’, my frightened thoughts told me. Brutal horrors assaulted me on all sides – ‘do the happy things’ my crazed mind bellowed right into my face, like some sort of demented sergeant-major on the parade ground. I scrambled to obey, I scrambled frantically to obey. I was full of panic at the thought that the happy things would no longer make me happy I was in full panic. I was flying Panic Airlines…

‘Please fasten your safety belts, ladies and gentlemen, we are shortly to crash. Please ensure that you have your tables folded into the ‘up’ position. Please remember to do all the happy things in the time that you have left you. If you can’t remember what your happy things are then please consult your in-flight magazine. Scratch-cards are available…’

Do you know that thing when you are the ego-construct and you are fantasizing about becoming enlightened? You’re obsessing about how great that would be. You don’t have a clue as to what that would feel like of course, but you know that it’s going to be good. It’s got to be good of course. Not just ‘good’, it’s got to be the ultimate. Everyone knows that it’s the ultimate. The whole point is that it’s the ultimate! The whole point is, the whole point is…

People will treat you differently then of course. They will have serious respect for you then. They will adulate the very air you walk on. When you speak they will listen. They won’t speak over you. They won’t ignore you or pull mocking faces when you speak as if to say that you’re some kind of embarrassing freak. Do you ever wish you weren’t such an embarrassing freak? Of course you do, of course you do… Was there ever a day that went by when you didn’t wish you weren’t such an embarrassing freak? Be honest my friends, we’re done with lying now. You have spent your whole life lying to yourself after all and so now is the time to come clean!

You’re embarrassed by yourself really, that’s what lies at the heart of it. It’s you who are embarrassed. You can’t stand yourself. There isn’t a day that goes by that you don’t wish you could be somebody else. ‘How come everyone else gets to be someone else?’ you complain bitterly, ‘how unfair air is that?’ You’re wondering why you have to be you of course – you’re always wondering why you have to be you…

Some people say that’s the Great Riddle of the universe! The Great Riddle, the Great Riddle… How great would it be if only you could find the answer to the Great Riddle, you say to yourself. You’re trying to imagine what that would feel like; you’re trying to imagine how great that would be. You are straining your brain. You are straining your brain to imagine how great it would be if you didn’t have to be the ego construct. How unfair is that, after all? How rotten and unfair. Being the ego-construct is the most unfair thing ever.

If I really were to come clean – and not just talk about it – I would admit to the rather shameful fact that I don’t actually have any ‘happy things’ and that I never did. I pretend to have happy things; I maintain the illusion that I have happy things… ‘Maintain the illusion, maintain the illusion…’ my fear-maddened mind screams at me at close range. ‘Never doubt the very important illusion…’

I suppose you could say that my ‘happy thing’ is that I pretend to myself that I do have happy things. Lots of them, in fact. Any number of them. So the point is that I DO have happy things after all! We can all heave a collective sigh of relief over that then, can’t we? Or at least I can. Heave a sigh. If not of collective relief, then at least personal relief. The relief of the ego-construct – that’s got to be worth something at least? How much would you give me for that?

I’m starting to feel quite nostalgic now. Nostalgia is starting to get a grip on me as I think back over all the happy times that I had in my life. All those times when I was doing my good old happy things. Do remember that, I ask myself, do you remember the other. Do you remember the time, do you remember the time. The happy, happy times I had doing those great old happy things. There’ll never be times like those again – times when I got to pretend to myself that I actually had happy things to do, things that actually made me happy…