It’s very important to be pliant and obedient all of the time, just like toothpaste in its tube. Going where it’s squirted. That’s what I’ve always been taught anyway, and I don’t care who knows it! It’s kind of the key thing in life really, and that’s no word of a lie. Once you understand this basic principle then everything will go swimmingly for you. You just have to comply with whatever it is that you’re supposed to be compliant with… I still remember the day this became clear to me – it was like a magnesium flash gun going off in my head, it was like a big brass gong being struck with a hammer by a giant. The reverberations resounding throughout my entire body, and since then – as they say – I’ve never looked back…
It’s very important to think the thoughts you’re supposed to think and dream or the dreams you’re supposed to dream. Dream them well, my friends, dream them well. Sign on the dotted line. Take the pledge. Subscribe to the monthly newsletter. Whatever it takes, whatever it takes. Don’t disturb the beast, isn’t that what they say? Don’t get up its nose because you’ll be sneezed out if you do. Amidst a conflagration of mucus. Infected mucus, at that. It’s very important to compete hard for the prize, even if the prize is only a slap across the side of your head with a dead haddock. A dead and stinking haddock. A haddock that had seen better days. It’s very important to always compete hard for the prize. That’s what I always say, anyway!
Compete for the prize my friend, compete for the prize. I know that’s always worked for me! It’s the key to success, in fact. The key to fame and prosperity. I’ve written a great many books in my time but none of them were particularly popular. I never broke through to the ‘mass market’, you see – I never had the breakthrough that I needed in order to launch my career. I was never invited onto any radio show or daytime TV programme to talk about my ideas, and that hurt. I don’t mind telling you that that hurt a lot. More than I would like to admit. My pain was great. It truly was. And over the years it turned into a particularly potent form of bitterness, which is very often the way (as I’m sure you know from your own life experience) …
Compete for the prize, my friend, I instructed myself dolefully, reciting this tired old formula to myself more by force of habit than anything else at this stage. I had long since forgotten what the prize was, you see. Was I competing for life, or – as seems more likely – was I competing for the means of avoiding it? They dress it up as something magnificent, of course. They always dress it up as something magnificent. Something truly spectacular. It turns out to be nothing of the sort, of course. It turns out they were lying to you. Lying is the name of the game, after all. They call it the Ocean of Lies, do they not? Indeed they do, indeed they do. We’re all bobbing up and down in the Ocean of Lies my friends, slowly but surely drowning in it, telling ourselves the whole time that some great and spectacular future awaits us…
