He was working very hard to achieve all the good things and everyone was very pleased with him. ‘That’s very good,’ everyone would say to him, ‘that’s very good that you are working so very hard to achieve all the good things…’
‘That’s good,’ they would say, ‘that’s good, that’s good, that’s good. That’s very good. You did well there boy, you did well…’ It’s important to do all the good things, they will all tell you, so make sure you keep at it and don’t ever slack off. Like a lazy bastard would be slacking off, if given half a chance. I was getting plenty of the back slapping, plenty of the old handshaking and all of that. Plenty of the jolly old validation, as you might imagine.
And I invite you to do just that. I invite you to imagine – go right ahead and let your imagine take off. Let it take flight. See if it comes real for you. See if you can picture it in your mind’s eye – that’s the power of visualisation, you see. Visualise yourself as a winner and then – strange as it might seem – you will actually become a winner. In reality, not just in your feverish imagination. ‘What a marvellous thing it is to be a winner,’ you say to yourself, ‘it’s such a splendidly glorious state of affairs. How great it is to be able to attain to such wondrous glory’. You feel like weeping out loud – at last, at long, long last, you are finally the winner you’ve dreamt of being for your whole life. And boy does it feel good…
That’s all crap, however. I made it up – it’s just another of my sad and useless fantasies. ‘Will he ever learn; will he ever take a break from deceiving himself with all these sad and useless fantasies?’ you wonder. You don’t really care of course, but you pretend that you do out of politeness. You’re not a believer in the power of visualisation, and you never have been. Although perhaps that isn’t actually true now that I come to think of it – I’m pretending to have insight into matters that I don’t really possess here. As usual, I’m merely throwing a handful of guesses out there to see if one or two of them might stick. It’s never happened so far, but it may well do one day. Who’s to say, after all?
Facts worry me at the best of times. The worst of times and the worst of times. I don’t trust them – I actually don’t like anything about them. No good will ever come out of facts, in my opinion at least. I don’t have any opinions really – I know it sounds as if I do, but they’re not actually my opinions at all. I just kind of pick them up as I go along, I just kind of absorb them from my environment as I got about my daily business. Then – when I have absorbed them – I can trot them out as and when the opportunity arises. And the funny thing is that when I do come out with one of these borrowed opinions I really do feel as if it’s genuinely mine. Just for that brief moment or two I feel as if I actually have an opinion on something…
It’s a good feeling, but it still doesn’t mean anything, in other words. I’m putting on an act and this helps because if I throw myself into the act forcefully enough then I can forget – for a while at least – that there’s nothing behind it. Nothing and no one, – just this panicky empty feeling. Just this desperate need to fill the silence with something, no matter how inane. That’s my formula for ‘getting by in the world’, if you will. I think it’s reasonable enough to say that.
Everyone needs a clever strategy of one sort or another – some kind of thing that that they learn to do, something to help them cope when things get tough. And things always do get tough in this world of ours, don’t they? I did all the good things just as I was supposed to and everyone was very happy with me. I kept my nose clean, so I was let out early for good behaviour. I was always obedient and so I got a prize. ‘Oh, what sort of prize was that?’ you demand to know, immediately jealous of my good fortune. ‘What right has he to a prize like that?’ you’re probably thinking. ‘He doesn’t deserve it at all…’
But I do deserve it, you see. I absolutely do deserve it. I deserve it because I was always very obedient. I was always obedient no matter what, and so I think I deserve something for that, some sort of recognition. Perhaps they will build a statue in honour of me, a life-sized marble statue in the town square with an inscription on the base bearing the legend ‘He was always obedient’. In ornate, flowing script. Perhaps it could be written in Latin – Latin always looks better for this sort of thing. Perhaps there could be an inscription saying ‘Fuit semper obediens’. That has rather a nice ring to it, don’t you think? I think that would look rather good….
