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Raphael Vassallo | Sunday, 07 February 2010

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Freedom of Excretion

Ever felt that people just don’t take you seriously enough? That others look upon you with distaste, as though you were some form of utterly insignificant, inferior little creature, with no intrinsic value of your own?
Well, so you should. There are, after all, around 7,000,000,000 other human beings on this planet beside yourself, you know. But having said that – and here I am about to contradict myself; an important consideration, as shall afterwards be established beyond doubt – allow me to let you all in on a little secret.
I know some of you might find this just slightly hard to believe, but... I, too, used to feel that people didn’t take me seriously enough. That’s right: even someone as deeply consequential as myself would suffer the occasional bout of melancholy and self-deprecation here and there... for all the world as though I were just another, boring old fart, like everybody else.
And I felt that way often, too... until I discovered that there was a perfectly good reason for this irrational preoccupation of mine. As a helpful psychoanalyst once informed me (for the entirely reasonable fee of €400, excluding VAT): if I ever felt worthless, unappreciated, undervalued and generally insignificant, it was only because... hey! I was never worth an ounce of crap to begin with!
Needless to add, this realisation changed absolutely everything. It suddenly became clear to me that my innate feelings of inadequacy were themselves nothing more than the exterior manifestations of my own extreme perspicacity. I had correctly (and ingeniously) diagnosed the root cause of my own malaise... and then paid someone else to do it all over again (which, let’s face it, takes a certain genius all of its own, even if I say so myself).
Meanwhile, a second discovery came along and changed my life even more radically than the first. I discovered that you cannot realistically expect others to ever take you seriously, unless you, too, start taking yourself more seriously than you know you are worth.
Well, from that point on I never looked back. Not only have I ever since taken myself very seriously indeed... but I have risen to become a world authority on the subject of megalomania and self-absorption, too.
So without any further codswallop, here is my own guide to the fine art of ensuring that all others accord you the respect you feel you are owed... regardless of whether you actually deserve it or not... in three easy stages (and with all the usual disclaimers: keep out of the reach of pillocks; do not try this at someone else’s home, etc.)
In order to be taken seriously, you have to...

1) ... have a blog

That’s right, folks. Blogging is the way of the future. And never mind if (like me) you have absolutely no idea what the heck a ‘blog’ even is. After all, there are around 100,000 regular contributors to the ‘comments’ section on the Times website, and they have no idea, either. But guess what? That never stopped them from happily assuming that they were ‘blogging’, when all they were really doing was just broadcasting their supreme ignorance, superstition and childish intolerance for the entire online world to read and admire.
And hey presto! By an overwhelming coincidence, that turns out to be EXACTLY what this ‘blogging’ business is all about anyway!
Still: for those among us who still hanker after precise dictionary definitions (in this day and age, too), here is what Wikipaedophilia has to say on the subject:
Blog: Definition 1 – A bottomless, labyrinthine quagmire of stinking, rotting, putrefying filth, from which there is no conceivable means of escape (other than by instantly deactivating one’s Facebook page - more of which another time);
Definition 2 – A receptacle in which one may defecate, urinate, vomit, or otherwise excrete a wide variety of unlikely bodily fluids, which...
HANG ON A SECOND. That’s not a ‘blog’. That’s just a ‘bog’. OK, at this point I have to admit I am still a little vague on the precise details. But one thing is certain: whatever this ‘blog’ thing is, you have to have one if you’re going to make any form of headway in life.

2) ... belittle others

Yes, indeed. What on earth is the point of being taken more seriously than deserve, unless there were other creatures, less inferior than you think, against whose mediocrity your natural genius and self-importance may be endlessly measured?
A certain singer by the name of Peter Gabriel (not to be confused with the angel of the same name... you know, the one who informed Mary she had a bun in the oven) once made the point succinctly. How can we be ‘in’, he asked... if there is no ‘outside’?
This in turn means that to rise in your own esteem, you must lower others in theirs. So having learnt what a ‘blog’ is and then started one up of your own, the next logical step is to use this newfound marvel of modern communications technology for the noble purpose of simply belittling and demeaning others for your own amusement.
But not just any old ‘others’, mind. Part of the entire secret behind the fine art of being taken seriously is knowing exactly which inferior beings are to be pilloried, and which to be ignored.
OK, I know what you’re thinking. In an ideal world, you ought to be free to pick on any old category of person you like (it’s called ‘Freedom of Excretion’, and it is listed in the Universal Declaration of Fundamental Human Blights). For instance, if you feel superior to people of others races, it follows that you ought to be free to lash out at people whose skin colour is different from your own, etc.
But alas! Whoever said we live in an ideal world? Unfortunately, it just so happens that certain countries – including our own – are so backwards that have actually legislated against what they call ‘discrimination’; and believe it or not, it is now illegal to ‘incite hatred against minorities’ such as gays, blacks, etc.
Incredibly, this also means that excreting on any of these people in your blog could conceivably land you in a spot of trouble. So here is a simple trick you can use to get around this litle obstacle: Don’t pick on blacks or gays. Instead, pick on Laburisti (jaqq!). This way, you will never have to worry about a thing.

3) ... contradict yourself at least 900 times a day
This, I admit, is the easiest part. For let’s face it: If you spend the better part of your day spouting filth online, you can only expect to occasionally forget all the filth you spouted yesterday (still less 10 years ago) and unwittingly spout some grossly contradictory filth every now and again.
So for instance: if, in the morning, you communicate to the world your personal opinion that some people (starting with yourself) should be entitled to privacy on the basis that they are not ‘public figures’... it stands to reason that, in the afternoon of the same day, you should raid a private individual’s Facebook page for suggestive and/or potentially incriminating photos... and then publish them on your public blog, so that all your anonymous admirers can have a good rile.
And it stands to reason, too, that you would – later that same day – howl blue murder (literally) when someone dares to suggest that you yourself qualify as a ‘public figure’, and that as such your own private life should be subject to the occasional scrutiny.
What? Poor, innocent little you, a ‘public person’? This is indeed a new definition of the word ‘public’... which sounds a lot like another word... what was it again? Wait, I’ll just Wikipaedophile it again..

 


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