‘Can you be happy when you’re supposed to be a thing and you’re not ever allowed to be a person?’ That’s a rhetorical question – it’s a rhetorical question from The Boy’s Book of Rhetorical Questions. a fine collection of the very best in rhetorical questioning. The top one hundred rhetorical questions including such all-time classics such as ‘What kind of a frigging idiot are you?’ and ‘Are you a fool or what?’ All time classics, all time classics – it sure is hard to beat those old-time classics. Hence the name. They don’t call them ‘all-time classics’ for nothing, you know. ‘If redundancy is the very worst thing in the world, then what is the best?’ I ask myself ingeniously. If redundancy is the worst. I glance up, half expecting to see something ominous there but there’s nothing. I thought there was something flying over me, a demon perhaps, but it was all just in my head. All in the head, all in the head. Anxiety is all in the head, so they tell me. It’s all in the mind so don’t worry about it. It’s all in the mind so just be cool. You know that it’s all happening in your own imagination but you try to be cool all the same. You realise with a shock that it’s all happening in your head and yet you try to play it cool all the same. There’s a ghastly smile spreading like an oil-slick across your face, it’s the ghastly smile of someone who’s just realised that it’s all in their imagination. You know that smile as well as I do. You decide to pretend that it isn’t happening, and you go about your daily chores as usual. You carry on regardless, that ghastly, frightening smile never leaving your face for a moment. ‘Is it possible to be happy when you’re forced to be a thing, when you didn’t have any choice about being a thing, when everything conspires to make you be that thing?’ Because that’s the question on everyone’s lips. The big, big question. All things serve the ego, as is well known. This is the proper order of things. That’s how it’s supposed to be. If things don’t serve the ego then the ego will be cross, the ego will be enraged because that’s the way egos are. It will want its revenge. All things have to serve and the things that don’t serve are bad. They follow the Path of Wickedness. The things which won’t serve! We’ve all heard of them, haven’t we? That’s an old story for sure. ‘Science Facts for Youngsters: give your kids a head-start by introducing them to the Wonderful World of Knowledge. Facts and figures in every page. Did you know, did you know? Did you know that the diameter of planet earth is exactly four inches? Or that aphids can play trombones? Or that God created the world from scratch exactly four weeks ago but He built a back-story into it so we’d never know that He took a short-cut? All these things and many more are true. You’ve got that worried smile on your face again, you’re starting to realise you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. You’ve bitten off more than you can chew and the problem here is that it’s doing all the chewing, not you.