The Confidence Trick
Nowadays, the ill-informed and downright moronic can have an enormous amount of influence over the world. Those who’d prefer not to think too deeply about life seem to maintain the most influence over others. The shallow and vapid always seem to win the argument in the end, because soft soaping the truth goes down well with the crowd. Perhaps it’s down to a lack of empathy or respect, that those living the dream have no idea how others feel, nor do they care. Strangers are expendable, at least until they’ve earned some clout and gained some social currency, and then they’re everybody’s friend.
It used to bug me how much the music business played upon the naiveté of the young, and let their roster of lip-synced performers do their best to seduce the least confident of their peer group. Showing them the way, first fashion tips and advice on love, and then as time goes on, reams of potted philosophical gestures, socio-political lectures, all handed down from secretive think-tanks and psych warfare institutions, hellbent on moulding society’s new generation to their own image.
For the power elite, humanity’s a game, a sport for the bored and obscenely wealthy. Their quarry, a potpourri of poor and wretched souls, supremely convinced by corporate propaganda, that they are unique and individual beings, brimming with creative potential, not slaves. Yet, down here, at the bottom of the heap, resentment is growing, and as for democracy and fair representation, there has been something of a mission creep. They squeeze yet more pennies from the those who cannot afford it, for the privilege of watching pampered cretins parade around their palaces of conspicuous consumption.
If I had the resources, I’d buy some land somewhere far from the horde and do my best to survive by the toil of my own hands. I wouldn’t subcontract my duty for a pittance and convenience. I’d waste time doing everything I hate and more, because luxury’s a bore. I’d buy an island and search for creative minds to come and live for free, and help make a model of a perfect society — a place where beauty’s admired, not an excuse to be vain and lazy.
Worshipping vacuous idols simply because their famous, treating those less fortunate like dirt, obsessing over age, class, sex or colour, being a follower rather than a creator; they’re all signs of something missing in society. In the end, all this will collapse, like the fall of the Roman Empire. If media was impartial the excesses of the venerated would cause far more public concern. Their lack of insight and their tendency to lean towards corporate agenda, has left their acolytes vulnerable, barely able to conceive the bigger picture. People with little to their name are throwing money at illusion, these deluded adults pretending to be children.
I’ve been treated like shit for most of my life, neither allowed to express myself in my youth, nor socially accepted during my maturity. I’ve since excluded myself from much of the world, and from where I’m standing, out on the fringes, the whole thing looks like a mess.
I read somewhere that in the last twenty years, at least in the creative sector, there’s barely been more than a dozen truly original ideas; let alone art movements, new forms of music, mediums and creative disciplines. It makes sense looking back, sampling beats, post-modern hacks, self-referentialism, the slimy simulacrum, the implosion of meaning, all roads lead to cultural regression.
So now people front it out, they big it up, they stomp their feet and shout. They roll out the same tired old ideas from yesteryear and hope that by putting their unique spin on things, they can get away with cultural murder. Their hands are tied by political correctness; appropriation has become a crime. So now they do almost nothing, grey squares, white rooms, black holes, fake smiles.
It’s a crying shame, it’s a worldwide disaster, but insensitivity is off the scale, wholly replaced confidence and bravado. For that’s the trick, the games we play, the more fake you are, the greater the gains. If you lie through your teeth and the public lap it up, then your simple answers to complicated questions, create movements for grown-up babies suffering from attention deficit disorder.
That’s the rub, that’s the trick, that’s why good is bad and even sick. That’s why language is dying, art and music too, the world’s no longer a stage, it’s a box of tricks. You’ve seen them all before; you know all their secrets, but the world wants you to play along and not spoil it for those still naive enough to believe in bullshit.
There’s nothing left now except pretty liars, ugly truths, and gatekeepers galore who demand more proof. The kind of facts that only an autocracy can provide, through approved channels and official guides, obfuscated through a labyrinth of bureaucracy.
This semblance of society is wearing thin, the masks are up, but the cautious won’t win. They have your name and number; they’re coming to your door, they want to ask you questions and put you on the spot, and see if you’ll comply or lose the plot.
Brave souls with empty minds smile through adversity all the time; they never let their expression drop, baring teeth like hungry dogs. The young cannot decide who they want to be, and the old can’t make up their minds when to leave, but eventually the truth will be laid bare. The state will approve of a cull, and so many frightened cowards will come out of their shells, brandishing pitchforks instead of banners, killing all dissention in their wake.
Standing behind one’s subjugators and agreeing with everything they say, doesn’t make one smart, and it doesn’t make one brave. Raising a fist amongst an army of thugs, no matter how positive the intention, or how vociferous the disagreement, doesn’t equate to victory.
The cowards convinced that they have justice on their side, will eventually find themselves alone, and then they’ll change their tune. They fear death more than they hate you or I. Social automatons craving new direction, their confidence instilled by propaganda and counter-insurrection. Many years from now, history will reveal the true nature of our predicament. Persistent rebellion funded by billionaires and carried out by loyal operatives are the precursors to a political coup. There are no freedoms on offer, no rights to bargain at the table, just more rules to keep the farmyard animals in their stables.
Be it disease or political chaos, economic collapse or military takeover, it’s all the same to me, I am going to die, and then I will be free. I need not follow the rules of the day, for they will change with the seasons. I have no desire to argue my point, or expound upon my reasons. I am nobody, and that gives me power.
Betray the fool’s confidence of the people of the hour, invite the influence of the socially adept, become a throwback to an age when individuality beat identity every time. There are no winners or losers here, cheering and clapping for banality, frugality, and the downturn of evolution in an age of regression is nothing much to celebrate.
There’s an elephant in the room, and a generation harking for the womb, and a sign up above that flattens the curve, offering dreams galore for the doomed. Have fun, but don’t smile unless you feel it, never sign the deal and definitely don’t seal it. The envelope is golden, but the stamp is made from blood, and the signature is burned into your memory long before your birth.
Grandstanding on the shoulders of mechanical giants, agents of change who feel no desire, means you are either with them or against, but no matter which, you are a prisoner and not a guest. You cannot impede the progress of disaster, but at least you can step aside, and wash your hands of everything that’s left this world in tatters.
Opt-out if you must, but for myself, I’m going to stay here for a friend, somebody who still believes it’s worth waiting to the end. They are learning fast, far quicker than most, but the dying embers in their eyes tells me, that they know they are a host.
Each of us nothing is more than vessel of another, a tourist in transit, paying with our souls, to witness the spectacle before us. The collapse of thinly veiled realities that are changing by the day, yellow turning white, and blue becoming grey. But at least they know, as I do, that none of us is to blame, this is not a fiction of our making, we did not write the rules of the game.
Play if you must, but don’t pretend that this is all there is. Let the busy bees buzz around the hive, humour them if you wish, but never fall for their confidence tricks. They’re not happy, they’re not wise, our so-called betters are in tatters, and their vision for the future is dying in the light. It’s ironic and rather sad, but in retrospect, we’ll come to understand that their cure for society’s ills can only make them sick.
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