Unfamous
“Do you know who I am? Judging by the look on your face, you have absolutely zero idea who I might be. And that’s good, that’s a very good thing. Because if you did have some inkling of who I was, then that would mean that somewhere along the line I’d made a grave error. Fucked up, to put it bluntly, and that would be bad. Yes, very bad for all involved, because you see I’ve worked so very hard to keep my identity a secret for such a long, long time that to have it known would represent such a colossal fuck-up you cannot even begin to imagine.
“You have to understand that fame is a terrible, terrible weakness. It represents the biggest display of ego an individual human being can manifest, either by their own doing or the doing of others, because it doesn’t always initiate from within. Some people work their whole lives to be famous, while others have teams of handlers who ensure they remain so. It’s a fickle, tricky mechanism, this attracting the attention of the public at large, and it’s an even worse struggle to maintain it.
“I looked at all of this, years ago, when I was still struggling with my art. Back then, I guess you could have called it ‘trying to make a name for myself’, as that would have encapsulated it to include the pursuit of public renown. Fortunately, I’ve always been a very observant individual, one willing to stare deep into the eyes of discomfort in order to learn the secrets hidden behind them. I spent a great deal of time looking at those who had gone before me, and made big names for themselves, and seen the ruin that their hubris had wrought.
“No, the truly intelligent and successful among us are the ones who can remain hidden. Those of us who deny the desire to seek direct affirmation and can content ourselves with the adulation our proxies generate, be they corporate institutions or body doubles.
“Never for one moment doubt our numerousness for I assure you: we outnumber the visible by a very, very large margin.”
First draft: 140917
Published: 230513