I’m sitting here trying to entertain myself with my thoughts, but it has all turned into rather a bore. It has turned into a tedious old rigmarole. My whole life has turned into a tedious old rigmarole, now that I come to think of it. That wasn’t a particularly entertaining thought, I reflect to myself sadly. I didn’t really want to think that. Quite possibly it’s true, but it’s not exactly what you’d entertaining, not in any positive sense of the word. Not in any decent sense of the word. The quality of entertainment that I’ve been brought up to expect just isn’t there anymore.
Life’s all about entertainment, isn’t it? Jolly old entertainment is the stuff. Some folk like their entertainment one way, others like it the other way. It’s whatever floats your boat, it’s whatever tickles your fancy. Day in, day out – the non-stop entertainment feed, the show that never stops. So what’s wrong with the show that never stops, I hear you ask? Would you rather it did stop? That’s the whole point right there however – it never can stop. If it did then that would be the end of us poor entertainment-sucking egos. That’s us gone in that case, that’s the end of us. What am I going to suck on now, I wail? Where’s the entertainment buddy? Where’s the bloody old entertainment?
The show is that there’s no show, of course. The trick is that there’s no trick, so if we want to be entertained – which we surely do – then we’re just going to have to find entertainment in the sorry spectacle of us not being entertained. In the very sorry spectacle of us going cold turkey because of the lack of any entertainment. And there’s nothing uglier than that, after all. You might think that there is something uglier than that but I’m here to tell you that there isn’t! You just haven’t seen it yet, that’s all. You haven’t seen it yet but maybe one day you will. To be a personality-robot is to exist in a state of absolute need with regard to being entertained and there’s nothing pretty about that, nothing pretty at all. You’ve got to have a very strong stomach to be looking at that sort of shit.
The thing about being a personality-robot – as we all are, needless to say, as we all unfortunately are – is that we are driven by the viciously cruel need to be kept entertained. And when I say ‘vicious’ I mean vicious – I really do. This isn’t just our main interest in life, it’s our only interest. We couldn’t give a shit about anything else and that’s what makes us the peculiarly unlovable creatures that we are when it comes right down to it! The whole thing is deeply absurd and yet at the same time – it has to be said – utterly repulsive. Inspirational is the one thing this situation isn’t my friends and we might as well try to face it. Look it in the eye, I always say – look it in the eye and try not to cringe. Try not to cringe too much, anyway. Try not to lose your breakfast – if you can manage that.
So one form of entertainment that the personality-robot can suck on is the validating story about its worthwhile and meaningful existence. Joke though that is. That’s a personal favourite for many of us, I’d say. But you don’t have to go with that – it’s whatever tickles your fancy, after all. Day in, day out – the non-stop entertainment feed. Some of it is of a high quality, some pitiably poor, but either way, once the addiction sets in we’ve got to have it. One way or another we’ve got to have it. It doesn’t matter how appallingly impoverished the content may be, we got to have it and that’s where we’re caught.
Do you ever feel sorry for your own pathetic entertainment-sucking ego? I know I do from time to time. I freely admit to feeling sorry for it. Poor helpless useless bastard of a thing – this is a truly degraded form of existence, I say to myself. This is a horror story in its own right. How is it possible to get trapped in such a truly dismal charade, I ask myself. How is such a thing even possible. By rights it oughtn’t to be, of course. How is it possible to lead such an utterly degraded and undignified existence and yet at the same time entertain fantasies about one’s greatness? And yet of course we do, and yet of course we do. That’s the story of our lives right there isn’t it? And it’s no good baulking at this disagreeable awareness, it’s no good protesting or trying to object. This is just the way things are, I’m afraid. It’s just the way things are.
