THE VISION OF THE MARTYR FRED · AS EXPURGATED FOR THE
CENTRALIANS
The Capital of ParadiseTrue Harriers know that it’s no use
Chapter 10
In Paradise,
2In fact,
3People will just be making a simple trade,
4Exchanging one kind of fear for another,
5dThey will never experience the terror of confrontation with the brute face of reality, and will therefore never feel its power to overwhelm them with the knowledge of their own einsignificance in the vast randomness of the universe,
6But in return they will live with a constant low grade fear,
7Which will never go away,
8Because they will never confront this fear either,
9And so they will never learn that this kind of fear is the life-long companion of the incompetent,
10Who are always afraid of being found out,
11Because they know that they don’t know very much,
12And aren’t really trying very hard,
13And have never really accepted any responsibility for making things work,
14But only a certain extorted accountability for the things that somebody else put on their list,
15Which is why they will run and run and run, and put in so many hours a day that it will almost seem like work,
16Always guessing about what might be the right-sounding sort of thing to say,
17And the most plausible way of shifting accountability to someone else,
18Someone who can be sacrificed later,
19If things go wrong,
20As they almost always will,
21In Paradise.
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Chapter 10 / 29