I achieved a god-like status for a while of course, but it was only temporary. I achieved a god-like status for a while but then I became a maggot in the rotting corpse of humanity. That’s how it goes though – you have to take the rough with the smooth. You have to learn to roll with the punches.
To say that I became a maggot in the rotting corpse of humanity is rather overstating the case of course; I’m giving myself airs and grace’s there. I’m trying to make out that I’m some kind of big shot and that isn’t the case. That was never the case. There is a law operating in life which few people properly appreciate and that is the Law of Deterioration. You haven’t appreciated anything if you haven’t appreciated the Law of Deterioration. That’s the big one – that’s the only one that really counts. It’s the only one that really counts when you’re down here in the Basement World, which is also known as the World of Human Ghosts.
Down here in the World of Human Ghosts all is as it should be, each day follows the day that precedes it, each and every path leads to its appointed destination. Here in the World of Human Ghosts everything inevitably falls to pieces, as it is written that they should. What we cherish we lose, what we prize for its beauty grows uglier every day until the time comes when we can no longer bear to look at it. What we rely on fails us, but even so – even in the light of this failure – we cannot help ourselves from relying on it. This is all as it should be: things were always meant to be this way and never shall they not be.
As I say, I achieved god-like status for a while but it’s as well not to get too attached to such things – that can only bring pain. I knew things that only a god could know, I spoke words that only a god could speak. I cannot remember those things now; I cannot remember the words that I spoke then. Those days are gone and never shall they return. Now I eke out my days as best I can in the Ghost World, trying as hard as I can to distract myself from the pointless tedium of my own fake existence. A good day is a day when I can when I am able to forget, but who can forget forever?
We are all sad ghosts together here, each one of us pursuing our own particular brand of private fantasy. We try our best to enjoy our insipid fantasies as much as is possible, within the limitations that have been laid down for us. We try to fool ourselves that we are having a good time and sometimes we even succeed for a while. Can you believe that – sometimes we even succeed! At other times we are unable to fool ourselves in this regard – we keep on trying but it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t pan out: the pain is plainly visible beneath the surface and there’s nothing we can do about it. We pretend that we don’t see it of course but we do. We can’t help seeing it.
Each one of us, lost in our own personal private fantasy, hanging onto it as best we can, trying to get it to work out for us, though it never can. That’s life in the World of Human Ghosts – that’s the way it plays out, that’s the only way it ever can ever play out. Tremendous, unwieldy, apparently inexhaustible ego-fantasies run their course, they go to the place they were always going to go to. There’s nowhere else they can go to. Time is an illusion after all – loathe as we are to see it. Loathe as we are, loathe as we are.
You haven’t learned anything yet, if you haven’t learned to appreciate the Law of Deterioration – that’s what the wise have taught us. But who amongst us can say that they have taken any heed of this most ancient of teachings? The word ‘heedless’ was invented for us. We excel in being heedless. We don’t excel in very many things it is true, but we do excel in being heedless. We go against the Way of Things, down here in the Basement Level of existence. We go against the Way of Things and hope – with a defiance born of stupidity – that it will nevertheless work out for us.
