Life in the Causal Realm is great. Up to a point anyway, up to a point life in the Causal Realm is great. It’s always ‘up to a point’, isn’t it? Always up to a point, always up to a bloody point. ‘And what point is that?’ you ask mockingly, ‘what kind of a point would that be?’ You’re cheeky, you see – you probably need taking down a peg or two. Undoubtedly you need taking down a peg or two. Life will do that though you’ll see. There’s no need to worry on that score. Life will do that in its own good time…
Anger is bubbling up within me. Bubble, bubble, bubble, goes the anger. I’m angry that no one recognizes me for the genius I undoubtedly am. Instead, they mock me; instead, they deride me on a daily basis. They’re such damnably ignorant fools! I’d like to teach them a lesson but I’m afraid that they’ll turn on me – that has happened to me before, you see. So instead of taking decisive action I’m seething away inwardly, bubbling away like a pot on a hot stove. ‘I’ll show them’, I say, but I know I won’t.
The Causal Realm is a tricky kind of a place – you cause a thing and then the thing turns around and causes you. It’s a trick you can never quite spot. You’re caught in a very tight circle and there’s no getting out of it; you’re caught up in a nasty little loop and that’s all there is to it. There’s a bad feeling about the whole business – you can’t help feeling that someone is controlling you the whole time and you don’t like it. And on top of the paranoia there’s the unpleasant feeling that people are laughing at you as you are being controlled, the feeling that you’re the butt of some kind of cosmic joke. These are all your experiences. You’re worried about the Robot Lord of Death….
You sense dimly that you’re a figure of fun and that makes you angry; that makes you angry but the angrier you get the more ridiculous you get and that’s another loop you can’t escape from. They’re controlling you to make you act like an idiot and then they laugh at you. They’re controlling you to make you feel that you exist, but you don’t. ‘Don’t control me!’ you shout out, but they’re makingyou say this. They’re manipulating your emotions – you’re trapped in the pressure cooker of your own private rage but the rage is what causes you to exist. You’re afraid not to be angry because you don’t know what will happen if you stop. ‘Stop controlling me,’ you scream but you don’t really mean it. It’s all very half-hearted. You’re certainly not in any great hurry to do anything about it even if you could. Even if you could which you can’t. Even if you could which nobody can, not ever. ‘Stop controlling me’, you scream but the machine is controlling everything about you. It even controls you to say this. ‘Why is the machine controlling me?’ you ask but the machine made you ask it. The machine created you in the first place you see – it owns you. It controls you by creating you in the first place and that’s a very effective trick. See if you can get out of that one – I know you won’t be able! No one can, you see. No one ever can…
You are plotting your escape all the same. You’re dreaming of freedom. ‘How sweet freedom will taste’, you say to yourself, in tones of pure wonderment, ‘how very, very sweet’. There’s nothing as sweet as freedom, as all reasonable people will surely agree. Nothing so sweet, nothing so sweet as freedom. You’re yearning for it, pining for it – you know it’ll feel great. There’s no doubt about that, no doubt at all, but beyond that you know nothing, beyond that you can’t imagine. You don’t know what freedom is, you see. You have your own little fantasies around that of course, cruddy little fantasies that you play over and over in your head. Fantasies of joy and splendour that go beyond all human understanding. Fantasies of dominance over nature, fantasies of immense, unassailable personal superiority.
You say you know what freedom is but that’s just your usual bluster. You could be wrong, you could be so very wrong. It’s terrifying how wrong you could be. You could be shooting in the dark. You could very easily be shooting in the dark. That terrible, terrible dark… You don’t like to think about it of course – it’s just too frightening. You are consumed with fantasies of personal gain, fantasies of your joyous ultimate victory over your enemies, fantasies of personal vindication in the face of overwhelming evidence pointing at your guilt. And all the while the machine is murmuring a steady stream of lies in your ear – that’s what it does, after all. That’s how it works. It’s telling you that you’re special, it’s telling you that you’re great and that all sorts of good things are going to happen to you. It’s telling you that you exist and that you are real and you believe it because you have no choice…
