When it’s the Equilibrium World we’re talking about then the thing to remember is to find out what ‘the thing’ is and then do it. That’s the challenge when you’re living in the EW – if you don’t find out what the thing is (or if you find out but you can’t do it) then you’re finished. You are Up Shit Creek Without A Paddle. Your life won’t be worth a damn.

So that’s one useful tip. Bear that in mind and you won’t go too far wrong. How hard can it be, after all? Everyone else seems to be able to do it – even the really dumb ones have got the hang of it – so why can’t you? What’s wrong with you? That’s what you’ll be wondering. That’s what you’d be asking yourself. You don’t know what the thing is but everyone else does! Even the dogs in the street know. Every bastard in town knows but you don’t.

This must be what it feels like to be left out in the cold, you say to yourself. This must be what it feels like to be left out in the cold and receive – as your rightful due – the cold shoulder of humanity. That’s what’s going through your mind. That, and other thoughts of a similar nature. Only that’s not going happen to you so don’t worry. I was only saying that to make a point, to show how important it is to get it right in the EW, because the EW is all about getting it right. People will look down their noses at you in a big way if you don’t. You’re the lowest of the low in that case. You’re a waste of space. You’re shit on someone’s shoe.

You prove your worth in the Equilibrium World by showing how well you can do the thing – that’s the only card you have to play here so you’ve to make sure that you’ve got it absolutely right. But you’ll do fine – you really will. I absolutely know you will so please don’t worry. I’m only trying to explain how things work, just so you know. And the funny thing is – which really is very funny when you get to think about it, which you won’t because you won’t get time to – is that what the thing is doesn’t actually matter. The ‘thing’ could be as stupid as you like, it could be completely dumb, the dumbest stupidest thing ever, but no one will ever comment on it. They won’t care. Nobody cares about that because they’re all too busy trying to excel at it. Excellence is everything in the Equilibrium World and no one gives a shit about what you’re being excellent at.

The EW is so great that sometimes I feel like praising it out loud. I feel like raising my voice in joyous exultant adulation. Sometimes I do praise the EW out loud, but not too loudly because I wouldn’t like to attract undue attention to myself. It could be the wrong sort of attention you see, the dangerous sort. The EW is great and all but at the same time there are countless predators and carrion eaters waiting to emerge from the woodwork if the opportunity arises. Bottom feeders, waiting to feed upon whatever they find there at the bottom. As they say, what you find at the bottom isn’t tasty, but it is easy. Whatever you find there doesn’t struggle too hard to get away – it doesn’t struggle too hard to get away because it’s probably half dead by the time you find it. Half dead or long dead, half dead or long dead.

Those great old equilibrium values, those shitty old great things. The great things are so great, we parrot dutifully, as one hundred generations have done before us. It’s important to say how great the things are, it’s the ‘done thing’ after all. It’s expected of us. It’s crucially important to say how wonderfully great the crappy old equilibrium values are. Just to reassure ourselves, just to reassure ourselves that we aren’t prisoners in hell.