Rupert Dreyfus Quotes

If you want to work your stinking job and pay into a pension plan for the rest of your days then fine; if you want to visit the supermarket once a week and feel great about yourself for finding the best offers on low fat microwave meals then fine; if you want to click around them computers all night, chatting to your Aunt Sally in Honolulu then fine; if you want to drink in moderation so you don't end up shitting the bed then fine; if you want to continue the cycle of obedient drones then fine; if you want to resent how average your life has turned out in return for a salary that buys you nothing more than permanent misery then fine. All fine and dandy. Go right ahead. Just leave me the fuck out of it.

What no school prepares you for is the fact that when you finally get to enter the adult world you're just one of seven billion primates swinging from the trees, hurling your excrement at each other and fighting over the same tiny pot of job vacancies. Instead school teaches you everything that you don't need to know, hands over your exam results and tells you to fuck off into the jungle to fend for yourself. No more handouts; no more free passes. Get out there and make a miracle happen. Or die.

Social media is basically standing at a bucket filled with other people's vomit and you suck the vomit through a straw, and gag and wince at the unbearable taste of other people's vomit. Yet strangely we continue to suck through the straw as if we've never tasted such lovely vomit. And then before you know it you're old and you're grey. And that's the end of you. A lonely death. Your gravestone is marked with the six saddest words:

Social Media Drained My Soul Away

And they all mourn your loss at a budget funeral service while updating their social media statuses on mobile phones apps. And in years to come nobody remembers any of your updates; even those updates that you deep-down believed were going to bring about world peace. The Digital Age is more disposable than nappies and just as full of shit.

Conservatism will always be synonymous with boring, and no amount of rebranding is going to change that.

There is nothing admirable about being obedient to a system that doesn't serve you. The present system we endure day in, day out is designed to turn us against each other while a minority of people get rich off our backs, destroying the planet in the process.

I like to judge people and it was clear to me that Colin's life has been about as exciting as a cluster headache. You can tell this just from his humour tumour which runs through every conversation you have with him. I got the impression that Colin had arrived at his early fifties resenting the fact that he's spent his entire career worshiping at the altar of Dynasty PLC. But he is now so indoctrinated by the world of corporate banking that he's forgotten how to express the real him.

This is what a life working for large corporations does to people. The workplace is a place not to be you; it's a place to be the corporate you. The you that doesn't really exist. We all see this corporate you and pretend that it's a normal part of life. But we know that something isn't quite right. We know that the real you is slowly fading away like old wallpaper. The corporate you is a myth; just like Icarus. And yet we are powerless against it. All of us are powerless against the wrath of the corporate world.

There's not one positive thing about being broke. The worst of it is the day-to-day grind of it all. You never know when that treadmill is finally going to buckle and hurl you into the wall. So you find yourself having to run faster and faster, just to keep from falling off. You can adjust to the hunger and the tiredness for the most part, having to choose between feeding yourself and feeding your electric meter; but one thing you can't adjust to is the nagging anxiety. Whoever designed this loathsome system must think we're all living these wonderful lives where money grows in the palms of our hands.

There's never any reassurance that everything is going to be okay; a promise that tomorrow will be slightly more bearable than today. Every minute of your life is consumed by a relentless feeling that time will only ever lead you to the worst possible outcome. And why - when you haven't eaten a decent meal in two weeks and you've spent the last four days lying on a mattress just to conserve energy - should you believe any differently?