The Confessional
I come before you today father, with burden that is threatening to bring me to my knees. The weighing feeling that adornes my shoulders has amassed so slowly, over a period of years, that it is only now, with crooked back and weary mind, that I can see the error of my ways.
Last week, I looked at my posterior in the bathroom mirror. To my disgust, I found that I had, along the way, aquired a shell. It is a great big fuck-off armour-plated shell, like that which a tortoise retracts into. Yesterday, I gave my shell a name.
I called it Cynicism. I think, and you may well agree, that it is a very catchy name.
I guess that I had ignored Cynicism for too long. Though I had known deep down that he had attached himself to me (I like to call it a he, that is why I gave it a masculine name), I ignored him like I would, for example, a urinary infection, or an essay deadline.
It started with pop-music. I would whine on about how hollow it had all become. Every time Travis played from my radio I felt a jolt of anguish shoot up my spine, and I told people about it… dear god how I told people about it. Then came Pop-Idol, and I fiddled with my radio receiver for a few weeks, before happening upon Radio 3.
But it didn’t help. I found still more to criticise. Nausea enducing soap operas, life-style sculpting television advertisments, propaganda saturated news bulletins and Ainsley-fucking-Harriott. So I turned to Channel 4, and that might have cured me, had it not been for Graham-fucking-Norton.
I am sorry father, yes I know that I shouldn’t use that sort of language in his presence, but it is the shell you see. He just sits there on my back, and shields me from the hamful waves of information that constantly attack my senses. In return I must tell everyone how terrible all that stuff is. The trouble is that I am beginning to think that I would be better off without him.
It has come to the stage where I cannot enjoy anything,unless it is something that Cynicism likes. He only lets me watch The Simpsons, Jeremy Paxman and the endless re-runs of Brass Eye.
I seek redemption father, though it must be said that I have made a few positive steps of late. I have begun a course therapy. The initial phase requires that I watch Neighbours at least once a week, that I indulge in at least one conversation regarding the sex life of a nominal pop star, and that I attend a Tuesday night disco (without turning my nose up at the dj, the décor, the stripy shirted clientele or the pungent smell of a vomit-soaked carpet.)
With help from above, I believe I can crawl free of this cocoon that weighs on me so, and discover once more the joys that come with an acceptance of mass culture. I can see flourescent light at the end of the tunnel, and believe me father, I want in.
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