I was thrashing around wildly in the Habit World, desperately seeking some sort of way out, desperately seeking some kind of relief from the infinite tedium of my formulaic existence. This too was nothing more than a habit however, and a very futile one at that. ‘What’s the formula for freedom?’ I asked my higher power, ‘what steps do I need to take, what types of formulaic behaviours do I need to enact, and is it possible to succeed at this? Should we attempt to emulate the great heroes of the past, or would that be presumptuous of us?’
The good things are good, it is reported by the media, but it could well be that the wonderful, amazing super-good things are even better! How good would that be, huh? I made my home in the Habit World the same as everyone else and I became the habit of myself – I was as happy as Larry but yet at the same time deeply, profoundly miserable. ‘What sort of frighteningly tedious formulaic behaviours ought I to emulate in order to become a real human being?’ I wondered. ‘What are the key skills that I need to master, what are the all-important steps that I absolutely need to take? Which renowned liar do I need to follow in order to obtain the correct information?’
The tedium of my odiously formulaic existence – that’s what’s getting to me, you see. That’s the fly in the ointment that is causing all the problems. There’s actually very little in the way of ointment left at this stage – you’ve got to scrape the bloody flies off with a knife and even then I suspect that the ointment’s all gone. Nothing in the jar but dirty filthy flies crawling around licking their lips, or what they have in place of lips. The awful unbearable tedium of my inauthentic life is crying out to me – I’m looking for redemption but I don’t really mean it, I am looking for redemption but that’s only one of my ruses…
Thrashing around in The Dirty Old Habit World whilst trying to come up with some behaviour that isn’t purely formulaic, something that isn’t a tried and trusted protocol. ‘Halt stranger’, they call out, ‘what protocols do you follow?’ ‘I follow the loathsome protocols of the Great Unclean God’, I reply bravely, ‘and none shall interfere with my quest lest they bring upon themselves the fearsome wrath of his appalling utterable malignancy’. There was no answer and so I carried on, having made – as I presumed – the correct response. The Lord of all Unclean Things will protect me’, I told myself hopefully, striving manfully to sound at least halfway confident as I said it.
Seeking a way out, seeking an escape. Seeking redemption. Desperately casting this way and that in my feverish search for authenticity. There must be something I can do so that I’m not a second-hand person, I thought for myself, but at the same time I knew that there wasn’t. And at the same time I also knew I didn’t really care anyway. Not really. Nowhere in my bag of habits was there a habit which would facilitate me in living the authentic life that I yearned for. Nowhere in my bag of tricks was there a trick that would enable me to stop being so fundamentally dishonest. The trick for that hadn’t been invented yet. Nowhere in my extensive collection of lies was there a lie that was actually the truth.
‘Emulate the Greatness as best you can’, a mighty voice cried out from deep within my own mind, ‘emulate the Greatness from morning till night, emulate the Greatness for all you’re worth. Emulate the Greatness as if your very life depends upon it…’ I recognised the voice as that of The Deceiver Himself and so I scurried off hastily to do his bidding. I scurried off as fast as I could, trying to look busy, trying to look as if I knew what I was doing. ‘The Deceiver has spoken’, I told myself, ‘and I must hurry to carry out his orders.’ I was so afraid that all I could do was babble senselessly – fear had driven everything out of my head, you see – including any vestige of any good sense that I might once have had. I was filled with the panic stricken urge to obey. I was filled with the panic-stricken urge to obey, even though I didn’t have the fainest clue as to how I was supposed to do that.
