A SHADOWLESS WORLD

 

Remember how we became afraid of our shadows? We started to wonder what they were. We knew they were dark shapes made by our bodies and other objects in light, but we started to wonder what they were on a deeper level. Do you remember? We started wondering what they were - really. We wondered why they were there. We wondered what they wanted. They must want something. Everything wants something. We started to wonder what they knew about us and realised that it must be everything – always there, watching and listening. Then we realised that night time was all of the shadows merged into a singular shadow that covered the Sun. 'What power!' we exclaimed. 'They can deny us the Sun!'

We became truly fearful then, remember? We built bunkers, remember? We took to the bunkers and never left. We communicated with each other via online forums and we delivered things to each other with drones that dropped parcels into chutes. We flooded the bunkers with light at every angle so there would be no place for a shadow to reside. The light was intense and we would have become blind if we didn't start wearing the blindfolds to protect our eyes.

Then came the naysayers. They wondered what use it was having eyes if we could not use them to see and they asked what harm the shadows had ever done to us in the first place. They eventually took off their blindfolds and turned off their lights and they even left their bunkers. The fools. The bloody fools.

We never heard from them again of course. I suppose the shadows must have gotten them. God knows what the shadows did to them. Maybe the shadows swallowed them up. Maybe they got turned into shadows too. Maybe that's what happens when you die, you become a shadow and then you follow the living and make plans for their demise so you can convert them into shadows, into night, into darkness and... God, it doesn't bear thinking about.

Anyway, those of us who were wise remained in our bunkers. We have adjusted to not seeing the world lest we become blind and we see a new world now, a better world, a shadowless world, through our VR headsets. We are safe from our shadows and we will survive, unlike the naysayers. Some say they hear the naysayers moving about on the ground above us, talking and sometimes even laughing. One person said they heard them playing music and maybe dancing, but that could not be. The naysayers have surely perished and there is no such thing as ghosts. Ghosts are just fearful superstition and we left fearful superstition behind us a long time ago. Fearful superstition belongs in the past, in the darkness, with the shadows. We live in the light now, even though it blinds us and the electricity bills are fucking astronomical.

9 11 + 20

'The spectacular nature of the event more than compensated for the tragedy. Traumatic, yes, but wonderfully so. A sad day for America, but an unprecedented, ratings triumph the world over. An atrocity that at least had the decency to leave a franchise in its wake. Personally, now that the dust has settled and the dead are laid to rest, I think I can finally admit to loving it. It's unreal! I’ve watched it again and again and again. It’s better than Hamilton.' 

WE ARE ALL LITTLE ALBERTS NOW

 

In 1920, the American psychologist John B. Watson of Johns Hopkins University embarked on a disturbing experiment to develop irrational phobias in human beings. He paid an impoverished mother one dollar so he could experiment on her infant son, who he renamed ‘Little Albert.’

Watson exposed Little Albert to rabbits and puppies. Little Albert happily played with the animals until Watson loudly clanged metal pots and pans to alarm the baby. A phobia of furry creatures was successfully installed and Little Albert was sent on his way to live with it for the rest of his one dollar life.

A delighted Johns Hopkins raised Watson’s salary by 50% to keep him at the university, but later fired him for sleeping with one of his students. Watson then went to work in… can you guess? I’ll give you a moment to guess what industry Watson went on to work in.

That’s right, advertising! 

Watson was employed by the J. Walter Thompson agency and tasked with scaring consumers into purchasing certain products. Watson made out, for example, that not using a particular brand of toilet roll would land your arse on an operating table.

In his advertising, Watson played upon what he termed the ‘fear response’, part of what was understood to be the ‘hypochondriac culture’ of the 20th century. Watson sought to appeal to readily malleable emotions rather than recalcitrant, rational intellects.

Watson claimed that he was able to do what he did because of a ‘lack of individuality in the emerging mass society’. In 1935 he wrote a book called ‘Influencing the Mind of Another’ where he boasted that he ‘could make any human being afraid of any object in the world.’

Watson famously viewed human beings as programmable machines. He said that we are ‘made’ and not ‘born.’ Maybe he thought this because he was a machine himself, a machine that could not pity a distressed infant. Maybe he thought we are all like him. Was he right?

Right or wrong, his approach was certainly effective. We are part conditioned by his methods and much of our culture is made in his image. Taking the baton from the holy men who preceded him, this machine man used fear to control us and he made us love it.

In his book, ‘Mechanical Man: John B. Watson and the Beginnings of Behaviourism’, Kerry Buckley wrote that Watson inspired a ‘progressive dream’ where science is ‘a new religion’ with ‘a binding faith for its practitioners.’  

Get on your knees. We are all Little Alberts now.

WHATEVER WUNGOS ARE

 

If celebrity something or other Ned Belleck was never certain what he was famous for, he was completely in the dark about what he was infamous for. He just woke up one day to find everyone online condemning him for being a 'wungo'. 'The signs were always there,' tweeted tweets. 'I always knew that about that guy,' opined people who Ned never knew and who never knew Ned.

Ned didn't know what a wungo was. He was not an old man or particularly out of touch, but everything moves so fast these days. Ned Googled the word. The only definition he found was in the urban dictionary. This definition wasn't very helpful though as it defined the word 'wungo' with other words Ned never heard of. The definition read - Wungo: Noun. A total sumper. Penchant for skellegy hents. “Oh man, Suzy's such a wungo, I bet she barbutts her fing.”

Ned decided not to worry about being a wungo. It'll all be forgotten about soon enough and everyone will move on to something else, he thought. But he thought wrong. The accusation made it into mainstream gossip columns and was mentioned on afternoon TV. Most shocking of all was when the police arrived at Ned's door to charge him for wungoisation. Ned contacted his lawyer, but even Ned's lawyer refused take a call from a wungo.

Ned called friends to ask what a wungo is and the few who picked up the phone answered him sharply. 'You know damn well what a wungo is, you Godamn wungo!' they said before hanging up and blocking his number. Ned didn't get any more public engagements. His agent dropped him as did the charities he worked with and boards and committees he sat on. His life was ruined.

Ned left his large, beachside property and moved into a small flat. He changed his name and appearance and took a job in a garden centre. He just got on with the rest of his life and kept his head down. Other than his employer and the customers at the garden centre, he spoke to no one. He never recovered his trust in humanity.

Ned never found out what the word 'wungo' meant and he spent the rest of his life wondering what wungos could be. 'Whatever they are, wungos must be pretty odious,' thought Ned to himself.

Ned often found himself keeping an eye out for wungos. He wondered if those around him were wungos and sometimes even suspected as much. He even found himself going online anonymously to accuse people of being wungos. I mean, maybe they were wungos. 'They sure seem like wungos,' said Ned to himself, 'whatever wungos are.'

THOSE MASKS

 

Well, those masks now. I'll wear them if that's what they say to do, but I've a line in the sand. I'll not wear them in the shop. Oh no. For me, you see, the shop is a place of freedom. Freedom of choice. It's where we get to practise our true autonomy. Think about it. It's where all the products are. Loads of products. And not just one type of each product either, but a choice of different types of the same product. That's freedom, you see. Freedom of choice. And what other kind of freedom is there but the freedom of choice? And where do you get the most to choose from? That's right, the shop!

A wide variety of choice. An expanse of choice. A plain. A wide open plain, like the Serengeti. Oh Jaysus, I loved it. You should have seen me, back in the day. Maskless. Frolicking and gambolling in the aisles. Like some creature off a David Attenborough thing. Up and down. Around the corner. It was beautiful. I was free. You should've seen me. You should have fucking seen me, man. Untamed abandon. I'm welling up thinking about it. There we were. All of us, like a load of flamingos or zebras or something, making our way to the checkout. Stocking up. Teeming out into the car park.

But it just feels like a mockery now, with the masks. It's like a collar. I feel like a chained beast. I'll put up with wearing the mask outdoors or at home or in the bath or wherever, but not in the shop. No. Not the shop. It's symbolic really. Donning the mask in the shop is a kind of surrender. You can't let them have us where they want us, in the true locus of freedom, the shop. And they're putting shit in the vax too. A micro-nano-thermite-chip. It's to keep an eye on us. Like tracked animals. If I want to be tracked like some animal, I'll get a Smartphone. And I do have a Smartphone. I bought it in the shop and you know what? I wasn't wearing a mask at the time.

Oh, and I've just dowloaded a cool new app. The Smartphone roars like a howler monkey if anyone with the virus comes within a fifteen metre radius of me.

ONCE UPON A TIME – DEATH!

 

Once upon a time, humanity ceased to be. Well, it didn’t really cease to be, but everyone thought it did because the news made a terrible mistake. Everyone in the world lay down around the place as if they were dead. They spread out their limbs at funny angles and shut their eyes.

Religious people waited to be taken to the afterlife, but no tunnel of light came for them. Atheists waited to be eaten by worms, but the worms showed no interest. Everyone just waited and waited and then they got hungry and they got cold and some had to take a piss.

After a while, a little boy jumped to his feet and said “let’s pretend we’re alive.” The little boy’s mammy told him to lay back down because he was dead, but the little boy said “I know I’m dead, I’m just playing that I’m alive.” Then a little girl stood up to play too.

Soon, all the children were on their feet and then most of the adults. It seemed that they had found a ‘get out’ clause in this death business. You could pretend to be alive. So, almost everyone went back to doing what they did before they thought they were dead.

However, some people remained on the ground as if dead and were very cross with those who had gotten up for not being dead properly. Some of those on the ground were tempted to join in the pretending to be alive game, but they dared not. It seemed naughty.

Eventually, the people who were pretending to be alive scooped up the people who thought they were dead and put them in caskets and put the caskets in the earth. The people who thought they were dead did not protest. They were happy enough under the soil. It seemed correct.

You see, even though the people who thought they were dead were about to be really dead, due to being buried alive, they felt they were coming out on top. The way they reasoned it, being dead is safer than being alive because being alive will get you killed one day. FIN!

BOURGEOISIE V BOURGEOISIE

One day, the bourgeoisie went to the cinema to see a savage indictment of the bourgeoisie made by a member of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie became very angry at the bourgeoisie and some bourgeoisie formed an organisation that put bombs under the bourgeoisie's cars and so on. Members of the bourgeoisie ended up killing a lot of members of the bourgeoisie. Eventually, when the bourgeoisie got tired of blowing up the bourgeoisie, a member of the bourgeoisie made a film about the bourgeoisie blowing up the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie went to the cinema to see the film, which was a savage indictment of the bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie became very angry at the bourgeoisie and some bourgeoisie formed an organisation that put bombs under the bourgeoisie's cars and so on.

It was all very exciting. It was all very important. It was really revolutionary. 

Some of the bourgeoisie were even sent to prison by the bourgeoisie, but all of the bourgeoisie eventually became bourgeoisie media pundits and went on TV shows where the bourgeoisie spoke to the bourgeoisie about the bourgeoisie in front of an audience of bourgeoisie watching from home and a few lucky members of the bourgeoisie who'd won tickets to be in the live studio audience.

SO, GUYS...

 

...@anarchofurrious is cool with @TankieTrustfund but not @PraxisAnaphylaxis and said it was OK to burn down mom n pop stores that don’t sell their book on Anarcho Liposuction and they do still read theory on their OnlyFans so I still think we can change the world guys and nudes are $40.

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE

I'm putting on a play about our current world. I won't be giving any of the actors scripts so they'll have to improvise any old shite that comes into their heads. I'm hoping for some monologues that make little sense, but sound powerful anyway - in a strange way.

I'll also cue light changes and sound effects and pull up and down the curtain at entirely random times so as to disorientate the cast and audience alike.

The whole show will finish with the theatre catching fire and everyone being directed to fake emergency exits that all lead to the toilet.

It'll be just like real life. It'll be very realistic.

Then of course there is the encore. Played by the final living actor, burnt a gaudy orange, coughing and sooty upon the remnants of the stage. The last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste*, sans everything.

*Oh, definitely tasteless.

TROLL AND COUNTER-TROLL

People are saying that Edward Snowden is a Russian asset. This is wrong. Edward Snowden actually still works for American intelligence. I swear. And all the surveillance stuff Snowden said that the NSA can do, all the listening on your laptops and devices, all that stuff is a load of shite. The NSA can't do any of that. It just wants us to think it can so we don't act against the U.S.A.'s interests. The NSA doesn't really need to watch us. The NSA just needs us to think that it can watch us, so it got Snowden to tell us that this was the case, which it really isn't.

Snowden is now living in Russia and he's spying on the Russians. The Russians know that he's a spy though. So, when Snowden is around, the Russians talk a load of shite about their supposed deep surveillance of the U.S.A. Snowden then reports this shite talk back to the yanks and the yanks pretend to believe it, but they don't because they know that the Russians are on to Snowden because that was the intention of the yanks all along. The yanks want the Russians to waste all their time making up pretend espionage stuff to trick Snowden with. That way, reason the yanks, the Russians will have less time to come up with real espionage stuff.

When it comes to real espionage, there's actually no such thing. No one has the time. They're too busy cooking up the fake stuff. Strictly speaking, there are no such things as actual spies. Well, there are spies, but their job isn't to spy. Their job is to give the people they are meant to be spying on the impression that they're spying on them. Really though, there is no spying going on at all, but everyone thinks there is, so they don't make any plans. The plan is to make the enemy think you might know what the plan is, so they scrap their plans, should they have any, which they don't because they haven't the time.

Are you still with me? Has confusion got you in its grip? It's all about confusion at the end of the day. The intelligence agencies are mad for the confusion.

Did you know that back in a simpler time, during the Cold War, the Russians used to use props in their military parades? They'd have a huge big fake nuke, a thing that doesn't exist at all, a big fake warhead in a parade and they'd know that the yanks would see it and then go and waste all their time trying to research what it was and how to make one of their own. The yanks would waste a load of time and effort that could've been expended on developing real nukes. That was typical of the shite that went on in the world of geopolitical espionage. Of course, if such a thing was attempted today, the yanks would just give the Russians the impression that they had wasted all their time when, in fact, they would've known that the nuke was fake all along. And the extra twist on top of this would be that the Russians would know that the yanks know the nuke is fake, but the Russians would be happy enough because the yanks would still end up wasting a load of time and effort on giving the Russians the impression that they were wasting a load of time and effort.

Do you see my meaning? Is what I'm trying to impart clear to you at all?

Look, it's like this, spies know that reality is irrelevant. The world of spies is a post-reality world. It's just trolling really. Troll and counter-troll. If James Bond films were realistic, Bond would just be going around saying he bedded all those women and blew up all those secret bases, but the reality would be him sitting around in hotel lobbies trying to look suspicious but feeling kind of lonely and wondering what it's all for and if there is such a thing as anything at all and he'd frequently check his reflection in panes of glass to make sure that he's still there and, deep down, he'd be hoping that one day he won't be. Or maybe, like David Shayler, Bond would see his reflection and declare to himself 'I am the messiah and hold the secret of eternal life.'

It's hard for spies to keep their feet on the ground. That's why they're advised to keep weights in their footwear. This also makes them easier to sink, when they need to be disposed of. We'll all have weights in our shoes soon enough.

HI, I'M DONALD

Hi, I'm Donald. You probably know this. I'm everywhere, even here now. Yes, I'm Donald. You've heard all the jokes and theories about me. About why I am where I am. The cultural and socio-economic reasons and, you know, that stuff. Blame it on neoliberalism or racism or reality TV or, well, whatever, whatever.

I'll tell you something though. Something people don't talk about so much. Something I know very well. Something even I don't talk about. Let me tell you this. My father gave me everything, or at least an awful lot, and that left me feeling bad. Really, believe me. I felt really bad. I felt like I never made anything for myself, you know, so I needed to do that, right. You understand me. OK. So, I needed people to take me for me, but I didn't know who 'me' was right, so I gradually became this kind of a thing and I put this thing that I became out there and here I am and, you know, I'm very successful. I mean, I say that I'm successful all the time and people say that I'm not. They say I lost a lot of money and all of this, but I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about real estate, mental real estate. I own property and that property is in your head. It's mental space and it gives me value. It makes me feel great too. I feel very valued. I like feeling valued, right. Don't we all like to feel valued? You know it. You know we do. Valued is something that my father never made me feel. I had to do that for myself and I was very successful at it. I built a home in everyone's mind and that gives me value and now I'm trading in that value and do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to buy the world. The whole world. I'm going to take the world, another thing my father couldn't give me by the way, and I'm going to destroy it and then I'm going to see what happens. Maybe I'll find out who I am because, you know, that's the one thing I really don't know. That's the one thing I never figured out and I guess by destroying everything I'm going to discover it, right? Sure. I'll destroy everything and by that I mean absolutely everything, believe me, I'll destroy it while you guys cheer or boo or whatever, like I could care less how you feel about it by the way, as long as you feel strongly about it, and then, when everything is destroyed, you'll look at me, Donald, and I will look back at you. I'll look straight into your eyes, straight in there, and I'll say 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'

That's what's going to happen folks, believe me, and I know that my father may not have been proud of what I'm destined to become, but boy would he ever have been impressed.

THING

I visited a nation called 'Nation'. Needless to say, the citizens of this nation were called 'Nationalists'. Initially, I thought Nation was the most unimaginative country I'd ever been too. The streets were all named 'Street Street' and the cities were all called 'City'. The postal addresses were a disaster. Every house was unnumbered and had the address House, Street Street, City, Nation. Mail rarely arrived at the right place. When I pointed this out to a Nationalist he laughed and said 'au contraire my friend, in Nation the mail cannot help but arrive at the correct destination.' This Nationalist then took a sip of the national drink, which was a drink named 'drink' that was usually enjoyed with the national meal that was a meal named 'meal'. Also, this man was called 'Person' as were all people in Nation.

Rather than lack of imagination, Nation's reason for naming things after what they were, even if there was lots of the same thing, was to prevent difference. It was reasoned by the founder of Nation (and the very first person to take the name 'Person') that difference was the cause of all conflict and therefore everything must be the same.

However, the problem of difference is difficult to overcome and it eventually reared its ugly head. What happened was this, one day two people called Person had a disagreement about which was better, drink or meal. Person and Person's disagreement grew to a row that caused a fist fight and then their relatives got involved and it was person against person, or Person against Person as the case may be and indeed was, in this case. This brawl grew and grew and resulted in a short lived civil war. It seemed that everyone in Nation secretly longed for the excitement and stimulation that only conflict can provide, and this desire was overwhelming. Where it comes to conflict, people just can't help themselves. Even if the people are all called Person.

Eventually everything was wrecked and ruined and shite and everyone got sick of it and wanted things back the way they were, so everything went back to the way it was – but with one big difference. Steps were taken to ensure that war would never reoccur in the great nation of Nation. It was decided that everything - the people, the houses, the streets, the cities, the drinks and the meals - all of it, would be renamed 'Thing'. Even the nation itself was renamed 'Thing' and, so far, this seems to be working. It's even harder to get the mail to the right address now, addresses invariably being Thing, Thing Thing, Thing, Thing, Thing, but no one seems to mind. Despite the inefficiencies, the things of Thing are content enough to just get on with doing their thing.

EVER DAFTER!

Once upon a time,

...everyone woke up and moved their lips to speak but the only sound that came out was the sound of a klaxon. An alarming, blaring, enraging, fucking klaxon.

And everyone cleared their throats, but it did no good.

And everyone rinsed out their mouths, but it did no good.

And everyone sucked a lozenge, but it did no good.

And everyone was very unhappy because they thought they would never get the chance to insult each other again.

So everyone went on the internet, to type their insults into cyberspace, but when they placed their hands on their keyboards everyone saw that their fingers had turned into logs of shit. Ten logs of shit was all they had, five per hand. And everyone was startled to see their shit fingers and everyone screamed, but all they emitted was a terrible klaxon sound.

So there everyone was, honking and weeping in front of computers that were covered in shit.

But after a while, everyone adjusted because people can adjust to anything. The human race is a very adaptable species.

And in no time at all, it felt like nothing had ever changed and everyone just carried on. Instead of insulting each other they just honked at each other and instead of typing callous and cruel remarks into the internet, they just smeared shit all over their computer screens.

And they lived happily ever dafter.

ThE EnD.

POOR PEPE

Bullying was normalised by reality TV, pop star judges and tough guy celebrity chefs with Deirdre Barlow hair.

Young Pepes learned that to win you must be malicious. That empathy is a weakness. That sympathy is passé. That spite is right!

Poor Pepes. Sad, insecure, mutually stigmatising, profoundly petrified Pepes. Discouraging each other. Stealing each other's strength.

The least equipped of us to deal with the challenging vagaries of life, should Pepes be pitied?

Pepes degrade and humiliate each other in an attempt to exorcise their own degradation and humiliation.

But self-hate is non-transferable. They curse each other and they are all cursed.

Jungian shadows are projected wildly. Insults and caustic humour betray an overwhelming dissatisfaction with existence.

It goes on and on. From snide to cutting. Accumulating. A toxic tsunami sweeps across our world. An inescapable, global hex.

Discourse is corrupted and now those racing to be POTUS exchange cruelties. So presidential. What good influences.

Being kind or even considerate and thinking 'hey, there's a whole human being inside that human being' is history. 

Climate change, warfare, whatever, the Doomsday clock is reaching twelve. 

It seems the concluding act of the human race is to piss on its own grave.

But if you can't beat them, join them. I think I'll give it a go.

So, my first and final insult to the poor Pepes of the world is this...

My remaining hope is that I live long enough to see you all die.

Die.

In cowering, sobbing, isolated regret.

Inhaling the Arctic methane.

Your world in unrest.

Dying. Dying. 

Dead.




That is all.

Release the gas.

Send in the drones.

Whatever.

WE'RE NOT DEAD!

WE'RE NOT DEAD by FugTheWorld

WASTED WORDS: Six Years of Fugger!

Fugger first blogged on this day, six years ago. That's six years of words arranged in grammatically dodgy order for reasons best known to absolutely no one, least of all me. All I know is that six years is a lot of words. Too many words. But what the Hell, it's Fugger's birthday so here are some more...

For this anniversary post, I thought I'd do something special and let you know about the word quota. Everyone has a certain amount of words assigned to them for use in their lifetime. Did you know that? Yeah, there's a word depot that stores a limited amount of words for each person's use. Once you use up your words, you can no longer speak or write. You are struck dumb. You never get to communicate again - beyond pointing and waving or using facial expressions or nodding and shaking your head. Consider that next time you waste a load of words complaining about the shite on telly. You might run out of words before you've said what you really want to say. It happens. Having said that, I'm not sure if running out of words is a bad thing at all.

Words drain life of value. Honestly. When you recount an experience in words you reduce that experience to just words. You even start to consider the experience as a story that you tell and forget the actual sensation of the experience itself. Emotions become syntax. Then you start to embellish things, to add a bit of sparkle to what inevitably becomes a jaded narrative. You might even discard reality completely and make something up. I'm not sure if anyone knows for certain why we do this. Maybe we do it to entertain others so they'll like us. Being liked feels good. Being liked makes us feel safe. Being liked sometimes brings rewards or gives us a chance to procreate. Or maybe it's not about being liked at all. Maybe we exaggerate just because, you know, because. For reasons we can't put it into words. We're a funny species, sometimes on purpose.

To keep experience authentic, the less you say the better. The only way you can properly convey an experience is through telepathy and we can't do that, yet. Once we master telepathy, we'll consider words as insufficient and rudimentary a means of communication as smoke signals. Dishonest smoke signals at that. With telepathy we'll know exactly how each other feel and we'll understand each other's motivations and no longer have a clutter of words clouding our mutual comprehension. Despite the odd embarrassment, this will be for the best. There'll be a certain amount of awkwardness because people you dislike will know that you dislike them and, worse still, people you love will know that you love them. Your silly preoccupations and insecurities will be on show for all to see, but then so will everyone's. This will probably lead to a lot of empathy in the end. We'll all see how silly we are and have a good laugh. You might even stop disliking those you dislike and come to love them, now that you've come to truly understand them.

(This post isn't very good is it? I should be putting a narrative on all this and packaging these concepts in some kind of amusing scenario, with a set up and a pay off. There'll be a funny bit at the end, I promise, but it should be less of a slog getting there shouldn't it? I should try harder to hold your interest. Holding your interest is my aim I suppose because, you know, just because. For reasons I can't put it into words.)

But where was I, oh yes, the word quota. Some people, those who talk too much or write a lot, like yours truly, often exhaust their word supply before death. If you keep an eye out, you sometimes see these wordless people around the place. You might see them paying for items at a checkout and smiling politely but saying nothing when they are handed their change. Most are elderly, but some are younger, living out decades incommunicado. I've a theory about these people. I reckon they find it liberating to be without words. I can't say for certain of course because wordless people aren't able to confirm it, but their knowing smiles and zen demeanours could well be down to their word lack. They look free to me, whenever I see them. They seem unburdened. I say 'hello' and they just nod sagely.

Anyway, this brings me to the funny part of this sixth anniversary post. 'At last,' says you. OK, so, there was this fella right, and he was always going on about this and that and whatever and never shutting his yap and it's his first day at work in a new place and he really needs a shite. He's busting to go, absolutely dying, but the building is huge and he can't find the jax so he goes to ask where it is, but then he finds that he's run out of  

MAN UP! HEAD DOWN!

Life isn't to be enjoyed. It's to be tolerated. I think that's undeniable. You can breakdown in the face of this truth or you can man up. If you choose to man up, you get your head down. You get your head down and you get your work done and you pay your way. There isn't much joy in it, but there is dignity in it. Don't be a freeloader. Don't expect anyone else's share. Take care of yourself. It's about competition, not cooperation. The only time you cooperate is to beat the competition. We're all rivals and you know it. Deep down, you know that only too well. Sure, the minus is that no one owes you anything, but the plus is that you don't owe anyone anything. Just get your head down, provide for yourself and try not to die in too much pain.

You see, you've got to be a tough guy in this world because this world is tough, guys. You don't measure the worth of your world with intangible notions like personal contentment and a sense of community. That stuff isn't quantifiable. You don't see that shit on graphs. Community can be best validated by measurable collective economic stability. That way we keep the road to the workplace smoothly tarred. Anything else and you're on your own. You've got to man up and compete. You've got to generate the income to partake of resources. There isn't enough to go around so you've got to earn your share. There's a scarcity and even if there isn't a scarcity, we should act as if there is or else there will be. Got me?

Way back in the way back when, F.W. Taylor knew that internal gratification didn't get us anywhere. He knew that external reward is the way to go. You're not a craftsman, you're a cog, but you're a cog that gets paid a heck of a lot more than a craftsman and shit gets made quicker too. Where would we be without quick shit? Waiting, that's where. It's about efficiency guys. Efficiency trumps all and if you're efficient you get paid more and you can spend your pay on quick shit.

Of course, I know what you're thinking. You're complaining that your income has been cut despite your hard work. If your income has been cut you man up. Work harder! The frontiersmen of old didn't bitch when their crops failed. Oh no. They steeled themselves for a hungry winter and tried again next year. People died, yeah. People die all the time. The cog gets rusty and it's replaced. Big deal. The machine has to keep running and that's all that matters because without the machine, well, without the machine we'd all have to go without wouldn't we? Yeah, we would. We'd all just be spare parts with no purpose. We'd have no reason to get our heads down and we'd have to look up and look around and if we did that then who knows what we'd see. What would we see then? It could be anything. Anything under the sun. The thought is too awful to contemplate. Just get your head down, that's the only way. For the love of God, whatever you do, get your head down and don't look up. Don't look up, just man up! Man up and get your head down!

THE TECHNOCRATS

Do you remember those mad cartoon characters The Technocrats? They were on every Saturday after the ThunderCats. They wore well-cut suits and expensive watches. They always had mildly bored expressions on their faces and pushed their glasses up their noses. They overcame sovereignty with their powers of austerity. At every commercial break, you'd be reminded to stay tuned when The Technocrats pointed at you from the screen and told you to 'stick with the programme!' Ah yeah, The Technocrats were mad. Do you remember them at all?

They had a robot that was the comic relief. The robot was called KEN-E. KEN-E was a clueless sack of mechanical crap that barely worked. The Technocrats were always playing tricks on him. In fairness, KEN-E was a very loyal robot. Even though The Technocrats didn't take him at all seriously, KEN-E would always obey their commands. 'The Technocrats demand my loyalty,' KEN-E would say, 'I must stick with the programme.'

The Technocrats had all these enemies too. Alexis Feckless was the worst. He was always coming up with stuff so he could escape paying his way. He wore a leather jacket with the collar turned up and he had a shiny bald head. He looked really evil in a lazy kind of way. He was terrible. We'd boo and hiss him when we were kids. We all joined The Technocrats Club too. You'd send away your name and address and then you'd be billed for all sorts and sent budgetary advice. They'd tell you how to spend your pocket money and recommend that you sell all your toys to wealthier kids and then rent them back. After a while of renting the toys back you'd run out of the money you made from selling them. Then you'd write to the club requesting further advice and you'd get a letter back telling you to 'stick with the programme!' That's all the letter said. 'Stick with the programme!' This was just advice of course. You didn't have to do what the letter said, but if you didn't you'd be thrown out of The Technocrats Club and no one wanted that. All the other kids would laugh at you. You'd have a bit more pocket money for sweets though.

I'll never forget the shocking final episode when Alexis Feckless revealed that The Technocrats were completely broke. He was a real dick about it. 'You're all broke,' he said laughing. 'I've got the proof and you're all completely penniless and always were. You're all a sham! A complete and utter sham! YOU'RE ALL JUST A LYING, CRIMINAL, TYRANNICAL, SCUM SUCKING SHAM!' Then the show got cancelled so we never discovered how The Technocrats got out of that spot of bother. I'm sure they figured something out though. The Technocrats always came up with crazy plans. Some would say outright deranged plans, completely fucking demented plans. But, whatever happened, The Technocrats always looked like they knew what they were doing. Even if they didn't have the slightest notion what they were at, they always looked like they did. That was their main power. I'm sure they were OK in the end. We never found out though. The whole series was scrapped and I've since heard that every episode was taken and incinerated and the ashes were flushed down a toilet because the people that commissioned the show found the whole thing really embarrassing and shameful. Actually, the animation was a bit shit now I come to think of it. The plot continuity was all over the place too. But when you're a kid you don't mind that stuff too much. You're naive and pretty stupid and you'll accept any hopeless old God forsaken shit that's peddled to you. That's why the kids were so fond of KEN-E. They identified with him. KEN-E liked the reassuring demeanor of The Technocrats. I suppose the robot was comforted by their certainty. No matter what half-arsed bollocksology was afoot, us kids and KEN-E always stuck with the programme. We remained loyal. That is, until The Technocrats show got scrapped, burned and flushed down the fucking crapper where it rightfully belonged.

SOMEWHERE SOMETHING

SWEAR NEVER TO DO IT AGAIN, AGAIN

We don't make history anymore. History just occurs. It kind of spills out all over the place and we have no say in it. History is like a pint that gets knocked over by some really drunk fella. It lands on his lap and makes it look as if he's pissed himself. Sometimes it leaves a stain in the shape of a country.

Nobody is in charge anymore, for good or ill. It's all just cause and effect, but we're not sure what the cause was and we don't know how to deal with the effect. A lot of people are talking but nothing is being said. Most people are arguing about things that may or may not have happened and the factors that may or may not have caused these things to happen or not. I doubt anyone really cares though. Just as long as their opining is heard. As long as they are seen to stand out from the herd ...for whatever reason. No one knows a thing. We are all just caught up in a domino effect and we don't know who pushed the first domino and we can't tell which one will be next to go.

Take the example of ISIS. I really don't know who ISIS are. I don't think anyone does. ISIS themselves don't even know. All they know is that they are history, occurring. They are just delighted to be 'trending'. This is humanity in entropy, where being click bait is the sought after currency. ISIS are like the rest of us but instead of doing the Ice Bucket Challenge, they chop off people's heads. The Islamic Wahhabi state matters about as much to them as whatever charity the Ice Bucket Challenge was in aid of mattered to us. By the way, did we #GetKony in the end? No, I didn't think so. That met a sorry conclusion. Naked on the road, wanking and roaring.

We are all Jason Russell. Remember him? You probably don't. History quickly fades these days.

Future historians will look back at our times and try to figure out what happened. They're going to have to pick their way through an abstract mess. The course of history by Jackson Pollock. A tangle of twine and you can't find where it starts or where it ends. And what an end. Might this be the end? Or is it just a stupid transition? Maybe we'll wake up, like the pissed fella that spilled his pint, and feel a bit disgraced and look out the window and see a brand new day and swear never to do it again.

And then we'll do it again.

And then we'll swear never to do it again, again.