Use The Remote

“Use the remote, is my term for changing the story, changing the back drop, changing your life. You know, if you could point the remote at boring people, uninspired jobs, people who talk loudly into their mobile phone in your ear.”

“Point it and do what?”

“Banish them.”

“Like a wand?”

“Yes, I suppose, not wanting to get too Harry fucking Potter about it. Point it at whatever you wanted to pause, or change, or replace.”

“Click, stop.”

“Whoosh, change.”

“Zap, they evaporate.”

“You catch on quick.”

“Oh, you are speaking my language.”

“Ha ha, I thought you’d like it?”

“Get rid of the annoying people.”

“Women who have babies and then complain its hard being a mother.”

“White people who say they are being discriminated against?”

"Devout Christians."

"New age spiritualists."

"Oh, the mouth breathers."

“Road-ragers.”

“Hypocrites.”

“Homophobes.”

“Bigots.”

“Racists.”

“Conservative politicians.”

“Priests with long fingers…”

“Oh, ah, ha ha, ha ha! Stop, stop, it’s not really about making the world better.”

“Oh no?”

“No.”

“No?”

“It’s about self.”

“Just when we were having fun…”

“I know, I know, too much fun.”

“So…”

“I think we all can, change our own stories. We can make our lives better, if we really want to.”

“It's about changing the things you don't like?"

“I think we all can.”

“If only it were that easy.”

“If only? Why not, I say. Perhaps, it won’t quite be as easy as magic.”

“Pity.”

“But, oh, but.” He laughed. “I don’t want to sound like a cliché.”

“What? We’re all the masters of our own destiny.”

“Yes, all that crap.”

“But someone has to be.”

“And no one gives a crap about you, except you, of course. So, you have to do it.”

“You have no choice.”

“It’s aspire, or die.”

“Man up, or cry.”

“Live your best life, or shrivel and…”

“Gaze at everyone else and wonder how they managed to navigate through all of this?”

"Forever."

"Forever more." Shrug.

“It’s a meditation on regret. The opposite, actually.”

“Ah, regret? As the sad saxophone plays.”

“You can’t live your life thinking if only I’d tried.”

“Nothing sadder.”

“Use the remote is all about living your best life, clicking off the TV, clicking off the internet, clicking off the people who bring you down, clicking off the distractions that do you no good, and making the most of the time you have, that’s what it is about.”

“Sit down and write something.”

“You catch on quick.”