He used to be a confident soul. Hell, he used to be the confident soul around here. Always true to his convictions: however facetious, however outrageous, however honest or corrupt at heart.
He knew how to laugh. By god, could this boy laugh – at himself, at others, at the foibles of the world at large, or the microcosm of it that he found himself living in. And others enjoyed that about him. They knew a happy personality inveigles a decent and exotic crowd. Moreover, they recognised a gregarious character gathers a gaggle of mundane personalities searching for a fragment of the afterglow. And he was obliging to these.
Indeed, conviviality brokers few scruples while there’s a crowd around. And like any man worth his salt, he enjoyed an audience. A man on a soapbox entices few enquiries about his inner thoughts, only his aesthetic ones. This is invariably an easier way to live an already complicated life.
Oh, had they only known.
But he was good at the game. He knew that to play the success story, one must at all times be such.
Success stories are almost certainly not what they appear. The most profitable practitioners are customarily the worlds’ masters of disguise. They deal in camouflage, in misperceptions. They apportion equal parts fickle self-confidence, reflective social-glory, and imperceptible parasitism.
For the leader is always reliant upon those who follow him; however reluctant he is to admit it.
To stand out, however, he understood that no one must know this. So his life was a façade of barely comprehensible triumph. Success followed success, followed success. For a time this could be exhilarating. In the eyes of those who followed, the good times seemed destined to never stop rolling.
A leader must also have a dark side that is visible to others. Without it, he lacks true fervour and charisma. To lack these qualities is to lack the audacity to lead. And so, he accepted the task with apparent alacrity.
He would never back down. To establish a following you must generate first a group to identify with. Secondly, and more importantly, is the group you are set apart from. He knew that the imperative of a leader is to distinguish the differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’. And human nature is such that this is a simple task.
A malleable mind needs only to hear what it wants to hear, from the mouths of those who it wants to hear from. In other words, be who they want you to be, and say what they want you to say.
To do so is to sell out. But to do differently, is to be alone.
And he couldn't face that.
The pages of history hold the stories of countless stories similar to this one. The sell out is always, for a time, the success story. They are the achievers, the ‘go-getters’. They are seen in a light superior to those who sustain them, and accepted by these followers as exactly that. But always, always, they come to despise themselves for this.
He was no different. He found that life is listless when it is a lie. He found that to be praised by others for deeds that weren’t particularly spectacular to him was a hollow existence.
He found that the scorn he foisted upon himself in his private moments began to engulf him. It came to claim from him his own sense of autonomy.
He now knew that to arrange his sense of self worth around the card-houses of other peoples’ praise was a blueprint for collapse. And his card-house crumbled quickly, brutally, deathly efficient in its downfall.
Self loathing took the place of self worth. Guilt took the place of pride. Shame took the place of happiness. When he crawled out from under the remnants of his life, he found those who had followed him now glimpsed what truly lay beneath. Weakness, vulnerability, normalness.
And so their views of him changed, and they were gone.
He now took no pleasure in his hollow existence, and found that after years of neglect, his real self was a skeleton of what it had once been. It possessed now only bones. No heart. No soul. No means of relating to others. He was now only a name, to himself and to others. Alienated by his fear, not knowing who he really was or what the world held for him, he simply retreated into himself.
And now he is here: typing words that seem to hold an intimate knowledge of his problems, yet completely devoid of any solutions. Maybe instead of laughing he should have cried. But then again, who really wants to be a follower?
I wrote that between six and eight months ago. I can't be sure exactly because my memory and sense of time is completely void over the last year. It has been such a taxing and degrading time. Fucking hell, I am so deeply tired. Can't believe how the good days just disappear like they never happened, but the bad ones are always there in the background, lurking, keeping watch for my guard to come down. Then, as quick as I can smile and laugh, they spring a raid on my subconscious. Rejoice, you peasants, for you have a reason to be happy.
And I can hear you all asking, what are you talking about? Well, it is me. I am your reason to be happy; to be thankful for each day that looms up slowly then sprints past until there are so many gone that you realise your skin is soft and there are lines creasing your eyes and your body's grown weak and is starting to fail you. How? you ask. Well, thank the (insert religious or inspirational figure here) that you're not me. I can tell you something for nothing: you are lucky, you landlocked lovers, to not be who I am.
But I am glad to be me. I am thankful for my foibles, my fears and my faults. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind being more than what I am, but I can be comfortable as this now. Or maybe not. Who am I kidding? Not you. Not me. Not anyone. What a waste of space this is. At least, I guess, I'm not printing excerpts of Britney Spears or Simple Plan lyrics. God damn, that would be bad.
So anyways, how have you been, you pretty things? Have boys or girls been looking at you when you pass by? Wolf whistles or cat calls? Don't act like someone hasn't slipped you their number recently and uttered something sexy like, "Giz'us a text sometime, eh?" Oh ho ho, those smooth talking devils. But it is flattering, if nothing else, right? Surely we would all rather some undesirable character gave us a passing look than nobody pay any mind to us at all. Well, we're human after all. We all need some love. Me, well I'm in love with the mayhem more than the love of it all. Bom-chika-wah-wah, let's get it on. Don't get me wrong, I would prefer to have something tangible and life-long (I'd take it in a second if it was guaranteed) but I'm a failure at that, and so why not just get off on the mayhem of some booze- and drug-fuelled benders? Why not have a love of hedonism? I'm like a self-destructing message: you'll finish reading this, and I'll blow myself up.
And it'll be embarrassing. That is a given. I'll disgrace myself. I'll disgrace my family and friends and even people who don't even know me. They'll feel embarrassed just being near the scene of the crash, as it were. But I feel that way on any given day, so why not inure myself to the shame with bottles and pills? Fuck it, I'll do it on my own too, so people can ask me where my friends are to take me home, and I can reply in a witty tone that I am rowing my own waka here; that I shall be just fine behind the wheel of my own jet-powered piss-machine. I'll wake up in a gutter, dust myself off and head back to the pub. See you in hell, self -respect.
If someone you didn't love asked you to marry them on live television, would you say yes?
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