The candid voice

This smooth looking git is a heretic, a traitor, an infidel and a heathen. He should not be trusted. He deliberately attacked Christian values and has offended millions around the world. He did so simply to sell books, he is not a particularly talented author – he just chose a controversial subject for attention. His profits are unholy and he shall no doubt face fair and appropriate retribution at the hands of our merciful Lord for all eternity (a good dose of teeth knashing with any luck). I for one shall be joining the picket lines around my local cinema to project an aura of good faith and godliness to the local community by intimidating them in name of the Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace and shall in no way inavertedly increase the publicity and shelf life of the very thing I want to destroy. No sir, not me.

I hate the way this man has made millions of people around the world suddenly take an interest in my faith and ask questions of it. You do not ask questions. That is part and parcel of the faith. What happens is that you become aware of the errors, lies and fabrications of the ‘good book’ and you know it was written to serve sinister human needs. Yet then – faced with a sheer lack of imagination you take a ‘leap of faith’ and ruthlessly crucify your better senses and simply ‘submit’ (Islam) to the lie. You sacrifice your independent thought in exchange for a doctrine, which through a serious of threats and fears robs of you of even the faint possibility of real virtue. The second dilemma – is that once you have taken that ‘leap’ you must engage in a bridge burning process where you deny point black your original position of rationality and deny the existence of alternatives – because your doctrine can not exist unless it is the one true word.

So how dare this man, despite the irregularities in his own work, show the world the bridges I once crossed to arrive at my current state of blissful denial. Now I’ve got to burn them again!

But, I am one of the lucky ones – for I found and crossed those bridges myself – for many of my friends who were born on ‘the other side’ and whose parents burnt their bridges for them – they have never before seen the path that led to their conceptions of reality – and they will doubtlessly react the way all humans do when confronted with what they do not know.

Down with Brown!

Turnover

Wow… there’s a lot more people in my group than I thought … I hardly know any of them … that’s a shame … I bet they were pretty cool people … they do history after all … should have said something … too late now…. Who the hell is she? … She’s not on my course… she is!? … How did I miss her? … oh no… don’t stick that prick behind me… Christ sake… I hate that guy… such a middle class know it all… well… here we are… it’s a big hall … my eyes are crap… everyone at the other end is all fuzzy… ok, here we go … turn the page… woo! That’s a lot of writing … ok… focus… take your time … question 1 … no … question 2 … no questi… no… qu… no. ok… not the best start… don’t worry… so what do I know? … write that down first… there we go … yer – that’s some pretty genuine stuff… I could use that… right then… the questions…. No … no …. No … no … ok this is ridiculous… I’ve got to be able to apply some of this stuff… question 3… I suppose I could … if I was to take that angle … it’s not the angle they ask for …. But it’s the only angle I’ve got…. …. Ok stop looking around Paul… no one else is … they put that girl just next to me … how did I not notice her? … what was I doing? … I should have gone to class more often… ok …. Oh my god… everyone else is already writing …. Ok … ok …. So that’s what I know and that’s what I’ve got to say…. Ok…. Make a plan … make a plan… intro….make a plan …. Make a plan… I could say that… but not after the intro… make a plan …. Intro…. Ok so lets think… read the question again… perhaps if I say it out louder in my mind…

…Ten minute warning… TEN MINUTE WHAT?… holy crap…. Ok …. Scrap that plan…. Quick cram in key words …. Key words …. Doesn’t matter if they don’t link .. just the key words …. Man, she’s already finished…. Perhaps I could ask her how it went … no Paul… the exam the exam…

And stop… oh bollox…. Don’t read through … don’t read through I don’t want to know….

… can we finally leave? … thank god…. She’s looking my way you know…. Oh no…. god damn it… she’s not with…. She is… I hate that prick.

Parasites

I am tired; I am always tired. I have yet to get dressed and the day is already all but over. I have not left the house. I have instead spent the day consuming music, films, dreams and caffeine. Tomorrow I have an exam. Yet I do not seem that much bothered about it. In fact it concerns me very little. I suspect I shall perform adequately in it – enough at least to keep my grades limping along at the desired level. I feel exhausted. Three years of achieving so little, three years of no sleep and three years of no mornings can take it out of you. Without apparent purpose the body slowly decays.

And yet I maintain this condition thanks to the taxpayer.

Society, directed through the restrictive yet necessary shackles of government, has decided that in the long run it is worth funding people like me. Their hope, I assume, is that given three years of protection from the labour markets, I, and others like me will develop a perspective on life that will enable us to better take society forwards. If these ‘creative classes’ have to be funded by taxing the worker ants, the very people who have been failed by society - then so be it.

Millions of people awake early every day to commute to their machines of production to mindlessly create the surplus required to keep me here. To keep me comfortable while consuming the works of those who came before me. Those who took societies widgets and twisted them into social mirrors of colour.

In the third millennium, when class issues are merely a bad hang over from a particularly bad century – it is strange how I fear the end of this system of slavery that has served me so well. It is this fear that will undoubtedly motivate me to vote for those who I previously despised and work for those I previously distrusted.

Yet now I think I know why I will.
Three years to realise what it is your eyes are telling you.
Worker ants are nothing without their Queens.