The future is coming and you’re starting to suspect that it may not be on your side. The future is coming but that does not necessarily mean that it’s going to be friendly, you realise. Do you know that thing where you are trying so hard to maintain the image that you are enlightened but then you realise with sudden terror that you’re fighting a losing battle to maintain that particular image and then the whole thing bursts wide open and it’s as if someone has just chucked a steel bucket full of shit into your face and as it hits it is rank and appalling. You come down to earth with a bump. It’s a disappointment of cosmic proportions. I see knowing looks coming from the audience – a few blank faces too but you’ll always get that. You’re always going to get that – that’s one thing that I’ve learned in the course of my life. The fact that when you try to explain something you’re always going to get a fair scattering of blank faces in the audience. Moments in your life, huh? That’s something we all know isn’t it? When you suddenly get this moment in your life and something is happening (or you think it’s happening) and you’re saying to yourself this is an actual moment in my life. You wish you could nail it down of course – you always wish you could nail it down. Put it in the Hall of Fame amongst all the others. You’re trying to explain it but you’re getting blank faces wherever you go. Your ignominy precedes you. It is like a little herald dude with a golden trumpet that he blows to announce you to those assembled. The future isn’t necessarily going to be friendly you know. I know all the positive thinkers always say that it will be but that’s because they’ve gone mad with fear and they’re raving, raving with the pure unbridled terror of it. They don’t like the thought that the future may not necessarily be friendly. None of us like that, naturally enough – that’s why we create a world that is made of our concepts. This world that we make of our concepts – we know it so well don’t we? ‘Would you like to talk about it?’ you ask me. This world that is made of your concepts. What a world, what a funny old world, right? That’s something we can all agree on, anyhow. That’s how evil came into the world you see – in through the back door. That’s a question you’ve probably been wondering about, I’d say – how did evil come into the world? Did God make it? Or was it a mistake? These are the questions that come so naturally to the mind of the philosophical enquirer. These questions are positively queuing up to gain entrance to your mind. The future is on its way but we’ll try our best to be optimistic about it. We’ll try not to let the side down. It’s awfully shameful when you do that, you know. I ought to know – I’ve done it often enough. I ought to be familiar enough with that particular scenario, you’re saying to me. Letting the jolly old side down, that is. I say old chap that’s hardly cricket now is it? It’s hardly cricket but it is nevertheless what we’ve come to expect of you. We all act as if we’re positive about our future possibilities of course but behind that burgeoning positivity there’s a negative rebound that will knock the teeth right out of your head. Clean out of your head. Where there’s a positive there’s always a negative after all – it’s good but it’s bad, it’s nice but it’s nevertheless like a bucket of shit that someone has kindly emptied over your head. Real honest-to-goodness shit. We are all at ease and full of confidence but that’s only the image. ‘Tell me about the experiences of your life,’ you say, ‘what were they like?’ You’re not really interested though, I can tell that straightaway. You’re yawning on the inside. You are fed up with your job. ‘The future’s coming but it’s not necessarily going to be friendly’, you feel like saying. You’re not necessarily going to like it. There’s this TED talk that keeps coming up on my YouTube suggestions and it contains the message that we can get what we want in life. Sure we can. I say to myself. Sure we can. Will the future shake you by the hand or will it kick you up the arse? We all live in a fantasy world of course – that much surely we can agree on. That much if nothing else. The world was once young, you know. Young and fresh and full of potential, full of promise. Not like it is now. The future’s rushing towards you faster and faster and you’re wondering what you can do about it. Did you make good life choices or not? Any minute now you’re going to find out. You’re bracing yourself, you’re trying not to let the side down…