I performed a clipped, brittle act of self-acceptance. ‘It’s OK,’ I said, ‘I accept you. Millions wouldn’t, but I do…’
‘It’s OK,’ I told myself, speaking in what I took to be firmly authoritative tones, but deep down I knew that it wasn’t. Deep down I knew that it was in fact very far indeed from being OK. It was as far away from being OK as anything ever could be.
A global research programme had been underway for the last six decades, the aim of which was to determine the characteristics of the ideal human being. Once these traits had been accurately determined, and the data had been fed into the appropriate machinery, then the ideal human being was to be created. All of this was to be done was done under the cloak of the greatest secrecy, needless to say. The left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing, in other words. The left hand didn’t even know what the left hand was doing, never mind anything else.
The experiment was a success in one way but not in another way it was not quite so much of a success. A number of dangerous errors had crept into the programme. The ultimate human being turned out to be cannibalistic in its habits and before long it had devoured the entire human race and it had become huge. It sat on top of Mount Everest, rubbing his vastly distended belly, and burping thoughtfully. It was waiting for aliens to come so it could eat them too.
The Evil One was to be found nowhere else but within my own skull, I realised – this was the one place I had not thought to look. ‘The Evil One, the Evil One,’ I wailed plaintively, ‘the Great Evil One has his abode within my very own skull.’ This was – I must confess – a purely theatrical response on my part. The truth of the matter was that I was rather fond of the GEO – he had his bad points of course but you always knew where you were with him and in my book this is a good thing. He is consistent, after all, and everyone like consistency. No one likes having the goal-posts rearranged at the last moment in other words and – as we all know – this is the one thing that the GEO will never do.
I’m at home in a World of Lies but I’m also lost in that world. I’m both at the same time! Life’s a funny old thing, isn’t it? That’s a funny old thing for sure only it isn’t really life at all but merely some kind of hideous mockery thereof. It is a ludicrous approximation of life, you might say, although ‘ludicrous’ might not be entirely the right word. That strongly implies the possibility that you must might suddenly burst out laughing, or something like that, and there certainly isn’t any possibility of that happening. No way.
Our fate in the World of Lies is to wander around in a state of utter confusion that we don’t recognise as such, taking any pestilential bullshit that we might come across completely seriously. It’s not possible to take bullshit more seriously then we do. Our destiny in the World of Lies is to be solemn fools in other words, preposterously solemn fools who will never see that the joke is on them. It may not be much of a destiny of course but it is ours, and it is important that we own it!
