Modern society is of course predicated upon the Filth of Satan. No doubt you feel that this is too blunt a statement for me to be making at this hour of the morning. Or whatever time of day it might be. Possibly you feel that I am being too forthright and not tactful enough. I can appreciate the fact that a lot of folk will raise their eyebrows over a statement like this; they’ll raise their eyebrows because they don’t think it’s the done thing to be so direct. Oh dear me no – one should never address the elephant in the room, after all. That’s the whole point of having an elephant in the room – that no one should ever mention it, that no one should comment on it or include it in the conversation. How hard can that be to understand?
“I say, old boy,” we will say, in deeply pained tones – “that’s hardly cricket now, is it?” You just can’t come out with something like that and expect not to be socially ostracized. It’ll put people’s noses out of joint and I can understand that perfectly well. I know it’s disturbing to hear someone just come right out with the unvarnished truth in the way that I just did, but sometimes directness is just the only way to do it. Tell the truth and shame the devil, right? Isn’t that what they say? Sometimes you have to be downright blunt about things. We always have to be so bloody careful about what we say and don’t say. Don’t you ever get sick of that? I know I do. I definitely do…
The Generic Self is the dumb, fake and creepily insincere self and that’s why we all love it so much! That’s why we celebrate it and worship it. That’s why we are devoted to it and won’t ever let on that it isn’t real. And that’s fair enough in my book; I for one am not going to quibble on that score. I’m not that kind of guy, you see. I’m not a quibbler. I’ve invested in my whole life in being the GS, I don’t mind telling you. I’m not ashamed to admit it. It was a mistake and a big one, I know that much. Definitely not a small one. I wasted God knows how many years of my life on that stupid insipid bastard of a GS. I’m too afraid to add the years up, I’m too afraid to actually go there. That jolly old shit-sucking Generic Self, right? It could be me, it could be you. It could be bloody anyone. That’s just the way it is with the GS – it’s a crappy, second-rate phoney for sure but we’ll forgive it that…
It’s important not to be afraid to allow yourself to get scared and terrified by the new and the unexpected. “Oh no”, we say, in a dreadful panic, “that’s something new, that’s something I’ve never heard of before. It must be the work of Satan…” And then off we go, praying like idiots for deliverance, promising God that we will be good. Blaming everyone else for all the bad things we ourselves have done. We’re all like that though, if you go digging deep enough. I know I am, so it’s not like him going around pointing the Finger of Blame or anything like that. I wouldn’t want you to think that. The Finger of Blame hangs ominously in the darkening sky above my head, pointing unequivocally in my direction. You couldn’t miss it – it’s as big as a storm cloud, a great big hand made out of black, seething smoke with an extended forefinger pointed in my direction. Everyone has moved well away at this stage, as you can imagine. They don’t want to be associated with me, obviously. They don’t want anyone to think that the FOB might be pointing at them.
That’s classic, isn’t it? Rats leaving a sinking ship. Erstwhile friends and colleagues falling over themselves in their panic-stricken hurry to avoid being associated with you. Swearing blind to anyone who will listen that they’ve never seen you before, that they don’t know you from Adam. Frantically lying their heads off in the hope that it will save them, the beads of fear-sweat standing out on their foreheads. It’s a classic situation and we’ve all been there – let down by our so-called friends just when we need them the most. I have nothing but disgust for them myself, as you might imagine.
