I’m a member of the Dessert Club. I get to eat the most wonderful desserts! It’s all rather fine, it’s all rather special. Folk are embarrassed by the prospect of going too deep, of course. We are all extremely embarrassed by that and that’s just human nature. We can’t be blamed for that. It’s generally understood that we won’t ever mention it – we’ll look the other way and start whistling a little tune! It’s a question of reality of course – it’s all about the Big Question as to why it is so impossible to ever know anything about reality. Why is that? What’s going on? That’s the question no one ever dares to ask, of course. The question itself isn’t the embarrassing thing however – what’s so very embarrassing is the fact that we always pretend to know everything about everything even though we don’t even know what reality is in the first place. We’ve put the cart before the horse and now we’re in a terrible fix. This is guaranteed to make fools of us all, of course – there’s no way it won’t. Some would argue with this, naturally enough. They’ll roar and bluster and get up in arms over such a suggestion, but that’s only because they can’t handle the truth. Everyone knows that! Even they know that, but they can’t help protesting all the same. What else can they do? They protest by pure reflex – the reflex of Toxic Indignation. We have to allow them that however – we have to at least allow them that. I nodded to myself at this point, impressed by my own formulaic deliberations. I did a quick psychological assessment on myself and decided that I needed a few stiff self-affirmations to ensure that I stayed in the best possible fettle. ‘You’re a decent enough human being,’ I told myself, ‘You don’t always get it right but your heart’s in the right place. You may not get it right every time but for the most part your intentions are good. Mostly they are. Sometimes they are…’ So much of the talk we hear these days is empty old nonsense, isn’t it? Crappy old talk, stupid old talk, but it’s all we’ve got. And do you know, after a while that crappy old talk starts to make a kind of sense to us! A sort of a sense, at any rate. Stuff’s never so bad when you get used to it, is it? There’s no need for outright despair, in other words, no need to get all downbeat and miserable about things. No need for the long face, no need to let the side down. I paid the premium surcharge and now I’m a fully-fledged member of the Dessert Club, enjoying the benefits. Sitting back and enjoying the jolly old benefits, reminding myself of how very fortunate I am to be on this side of the fence and not the other. ‘Oh please not the other’, we cry out, consumed with dread and foreboding. ‘Spare us from the horror that all men fear…’ We’re so full of  sterile self-congratulation that if anything ever happens to disturb us – even a little bit – we will immediately vomit up a tidal wave of toxic indignation…