The Little Voice: A rebellious novel

by Joss Sheldon

  So what happened?

  About three quarters of the volunteers went along with the actors and gave an incorrect answer. Three quarters! That’s what happened!

  When they were asked why they’d given those answers, most of the volunteers said it was because they didn’t want to be ridiculed for being ‘peculiar’; they’d wanted to fit in. This is called ‘Normative Influence’. But some volunteers said that they’d actually believed the other participants had been correct! They’d thought those people had been better informed than them. This sort of conformity is called ‘Informational Influence’.

  Well, like those volunteers, I didn’t want to seem peculiar. I didn’t want to be ridiculed. And I did want to fit in. So I allowed Normative Influence to steer my behaviour.

  And, at the same time, Informational Influence affected me too. I assumed, tacitly, that the way in which my peers behaved was the correct way to behave. I assumed that they knew something I didn’t know. So I did things which weren’t rational, things which I didn’t really want to do, simply because other people were doing those things. I assumed that there must have been some sort of merit in it, even though I couldn’t see it myself.

  I walked around my section every day, offering to make all my teammates a cup of tea or coffee. I didn’t do it because I wanted to. Most of the time I didn’t even want a drink myself. I did it because that was the sort of thing my peers did, so I thought that I should do it too.

  I started going to the gym, to put on some muscle, so I wouldn’t stand out for being scrawny. I started to wear the same sort of clothes that everyone else wore. And I started to eat the same branded junk food that everyone else ate.

  I started to listen to popular music; the generic, plastic tripe which mainstream radio stations play on repeat. I watched boring shows on TV, so I could speak about them at work the next day. And I made inane small-talk about celebrities, sport and the weather.

  Looking back at those conversations now, I can’t help thinking of the Lao Tzu proverb; ‘He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know’.

  Well, I didn’t ‘know’ what I was talking about back then. And so I ‘spoke’ a lot. A hell of a lot! I made a real effort to chat with each of my colleagues every single day.

  I suppose it was like I was applying Operant Conditioning to myself. I created a reward, ‘Fitting In’, which I received whenever I acted like everyone else. And I created a punishment, ‘Being a Social Outcast’, which I would have experienced had I acted naturally.

  I policed myself.

  I was my own Skinner! My own jailor! My own worst enemy!

  Those imagined punishments and rewards influenced me so much that I’d have done anything to fit in. Anything! Anything at all.

  And, gradually, I think it had an effect…

  Some of the other fundraisers invited me to the pub each Friday after work. I didn’t like the pub, or the beer, but I did like being a part of that group. It made me feel wanted. And, it meant that I had three groups of friends. Three! Not just one. Three! There were my school friends (I still saw Gavin Gillis and Amy McLeish on a regular basis), my university friends and my work friends. I was denying my true self, but I was becoming really popular. That did cheer me up.

  I started to see my work friends on our days off. Every now and again I went to their houses. Occasionally, we went to a gig or a football match together. That made me feel included. It helped me to get by.

  The monotony of my job began to grate. And my doubts about my work began to grow. But I remained with that firm because I felt like I belonged there. I felt like I was one of the lads.

  And, as time went by, I forgot that I didn’t like eating that unnatural food or wearing those generic clothes. The rubbish TV actually comforted me. And the small-talk stopped feeling so inane.

  I didn’t think about those things. They were just things I did. Robotically. Systematically. As part of an unquestioned routine.

  I became a new person; sucked into the neutrality of the abyss, comforted by social norms, and set free from the burden of individuality.

  SEVENTEEN

  I was smashing my targets, getting loads of old grannies to donate money they didn’t really have.

  My bosses liked that.

  They gave the impression that they were thinking of promoting me. Well, they asked me about my aspirations and spoke to me about life as a ‘Team Leader’. Then they invited me out for a night on the town.

  I didn’t feel I could say ‘no’. I didn’t say ‘no’ to authority figures. I was a good boy. Plus, I did genuinely want to fit in. I did want to conform.

  So I joined them on their night out. I tried to behave like those managers; to speak like them and act like them.

  We started off in a pub. It was one of those tired old pubs where people go to drink for the sake of drinking; replete with the aroma of stale beer and the soggy fug of drunken old men.

  I didn’t like drinking for the sake of drinking. But everyone was downing pint after pint, so I felt that I should too. I thought it’d help me to fit in.

  Then we went to a casino. I’d never been to a casino before. I’d always thought they were silly. I mean, the house always wins! You just give them your money. It’s a pretty ridiculous thing to do.

  But I wanted to assimilate. I wanted to fit in. And so I sat down at the blackjack table, placed the minimum bet on each hand, and pretended to enjoy myself:

  “I could get used to this,” I lied to Mr Morgan, our chief executive.

  Mr Morgan reminded me of Mr Grunt. Perhaps it was because of his straggly eyebrows. Or perhaps it was because of his forced joviality. But there was something about Mr Morgan. Something subtle. Something violent. He had the air of a stockbroker and the aura of an executioner.

  Well, we were getting on well until I stuck on a fourteen.

  “What did you do that for?” Mr Morgan lambasted. “Yew Shodkin. Yewy Shodkin! You’re clearly not a team player.”

  That hurt. It made my stomach drop like a lead weight; thumping against my abdomen and pulling down on my lungs. It hurt because I was doing everything I could to be seen as a team player. And it hurt because I didn’t have a clue what Mr Morgan was talking about. I didn’t even realise that blackjack was a team game.

  Anyway, despite that incident, I was still invited to the following managers’ night out. And I was invited to the one after that as well.

  Those outings took place every few months. They never helped me to get a promotion, but they did lead me to believe that a promotion was just around the corner. They made me feel like I was doing some good legwork.

  On about the fourth or fifth such outing we started off in our usual pub. Then we walked towards the casino.

  On the way, one of the directors, a guy who was simply known as ‘Deano’, had an idea. He was a messy man, that Deano. He had a foul mouth which was always full of blackberries and blasphemies. And he was always having crazy ideas:

  “Hey lads!” he cheered with the exuberance of an inebriated clown. “Let’s go in this fucking place! Hell yeah, my bitches!”

  We were standing outside a topless bar.

  A bouncer was guarding the door. He looked like the offspring of a bulldog and a penguin. To his side, a poster was advertising ‘Naked Midgets’. And above his head, some garish red lights were screaming out, ‘Girls! Girls! Girls!’

  “Titties!!!” screamed Mr Clough, the Head of Accounts; a tubular man who had a barrel-shaped torso and baguette-shaped legs. “Boobies! Boobies! Boobies!”

  It took me by surprise. In my experience, accountants don’t normally shout the word ‘boobies’ out at the top of their voice. Not in a public.

  “Let’s get ourselves some snatch!” cheered Mr Smith, the red-faced Head of Human Relations.

  “Oggy! Oggy! Oggy!” another manager chanted.

  “Oi! Oi! Oi!” his buddy replied.

  They high-fived.

  I felt that I should join in.

/>   “Naked girls!” I shouted. “You’ve gotta’ love naked girls!”

  “That’s the spirit,” Mr Morgan replied. He smiled with glee. A contorted, vicious sort of glee. And he put his arm around my shoulder. He led me inside.

  “Come on Yewy,” he said. “We’ll have a hell of a time, dear boy!”

  That place was like hell itself. The space around me was pitch black. I felt myself melt away into a blanket of its nothingness. And yet red lights blared from every surface. They imbued everything with a hellish glow. They made my eyes water.

  I stumbled on and soon found myself in a u-shaped booth.

  I downed a tequila and looked up at the stripper on stage.

  Her body was, by any normal standards, a thing of beauty. Her moves were, in their own way, sublime. And yet I didn’t find that girl alluring. I wouldn’t have even said that she was sexy. Her eyes were empty. Her moves were robotic.

  We all downed another tequila.

  Mr Morgan looked my way. His straggly eyebrows merged. They looked like a wiry bush. And his elephantine skin crumpled into folds.

  “Yew,” he cheered. “Yewy Shodkin! You’re single. Why don’t you have a dance?”

  I cringed. My muscles clenched. My stomach felt tight; as if all the air had been sucked out of it. As if it was nothing more than a shrivelled sack.

  “It’s not really my thing,” I said.

  I looked down at the floor in order to avoid eye-contact.

  “Don’t be silly,” Mr Morgan replied. “Come! Come! Consider it my treat. You deserve it! You’ve been doing some great work.”

  Mr Morgan beckoned a girl toward us. He passed her a handful of folded notes. And then he nodded at me.

  The girl took my hand and led me into a private room, where she sat me down on a hard, fabric-covered bench.

  She swayed from side to side. She massaged her breasts. She licked her finger in a seductive manner.

  That whole experience had a profound effect on me.

  Please do allow me to explain…

  You may recall the feeling I said I had when I was told to do a religious ceremony. Turn back a few pages and you’ll see it, right there in chapter fourteen:

  ‘A small part of me wasn’t so sure’, I wrote. ‘It wasn’t as if the egot had returned. I wasn’t being pushed to refuse or rebel. But I did feel a nagging. A dull, gentle, element of doubt, which pulsated beneath the surface of my conscious mind, and asked; ‘Do I really want to do this?’’

  Well, dear reader, I felt that same ‘nagging’ whilst I sat there in that strip club. I felt that same ‘element of doubt’. I asked myself; ‘Do I really want to do this? Do I really want to degrade this poor young woman?’

  She was really going through the motions; squatting up and down, thrusting her pelvis towards my groin. But all I could see was an exploited little girl. Someone’s daughter! Someone’s lover! Someone’s friend!

  I wondered about her life.

  Perhaps she was a student, I thought, who was trying to pay her way through university. Perhaps she was a single mum, doing everything she could to provide for her child. Or perhaps she was a slave, a victim of a people-trafficking mafia, who wasn’t getting paid anything at all.

  My imagination ran wild.

  But, despite dreaming up scenario after scenario, I couldn’t imagine a single situation in which that girl was happy. She was dangling her breasts in my face, but she didn’t look like she was enjoying it. She was staring, blank-faced, at the wall behind me. She looked bored. She looked pissed-off.

  I felt terrible.

  I felt like a mangy dog. A rabid, flee-infested, mongrel bitch. An indignant mutt.

  That dull thudding which pulsated beneath the surface of my mind began to throb. It made my stomach feel queasy.

  But I didn’t want to rebel. I wanted to conform. I wanted to fit in. That was why I’d gone out with those managers. It was why I’d allowed the stripper to lead me into that room. My conformity made me feel safe. It made me feel comfortable. It made me feel secure.

  But my managers weren’t in that room. Nothing I did in there could please or offend them. Nothing I did in there would help me to conform.

  I really didn’t want that dance to continue. I felt that I was abusing that poor innocent girl.

  So I tapped the seat beside me.

  “Sit down,” I told the stripper.

  And I gave her my jumper, so she could cover her naked chest.

  We sat there in silence. Then we returned to the main room.

  “That was quick,” Mr Morgan said. “Everything okay, Yewy, dear boy?”

  I shrugged.

  I wanted Mr Morgan to appreciate the sacrifice I’d made for him. I really, really wanted him to be pleased. But he didn’t seem grateful at all. He looked like he wanted me to be grateful to him!

  He scowled at me. He actually scowled at me! His scraggly eyebrows stood on end!

  My heart sunk. My stomach turned. And I ran to the toilet, where I was sick all over the floor.

  EIGHTEEN

  I lost my job.

  My company went through a lean spell, during which time there simply wasn’t enough work to go around. Everyone who didn’t have experience of working for charities in Sector C was ‘let go’.

  “It’s stupid,” Mr Collins told me. “You’re one of the best fundraisers here. There’s no way we should be releasing you.”

  But they did ‘release’ me. That’s bureaucracy for you.

  I didn’t let it get me down though. No. My track record of success had boosted my ego. I was confident that I’d be a success in whatever job I was given. And that confidence shone through at interview. It helped me to get a new job within a month, working as a junior chef in the kitchen of a chain pub; microwaving pre-made meals and washing cheap china plates. It wasn’t much; I was on a zero-hour contract, on the minimum wage. But it helped me to pay the bills.

  I even got myself a new girlfriend, Lorraine; an older woman who had a cherubic face and mischievous eyes. We were good for each other. We both saw the world in a similar way. We both had our issues.

  Lorraine and I moved in together after we’d been dating for a few months. That was a big step for me. It made me feel like an adult. Normal. Responsible.

  And we got along. We stayed up late each night; drinking wine and putting the world to rights. We visited each other’s friends. We went to the theatre together.

  Yeah, I really did feel a placid sort of contentment when I was with Lorraine. It’s not that I felt happy. I’ve already explained that I was living in a state of complete and utter apathy. But I did feel hopeful. I believed that things were on the up.

  To understand my state of mind, it’s first necessary to understand what the psychologist Tali Sharot calls the ‘Optimism Bias’. It’s the tendency, which most of us have, to overestimate the likelihood of experiencing good events and underestimate the likelihood of experiencing bad events.

  In the Western World, for example, about two out of five married couples get divorced. Yet when newlyweds are told this and then asked about the likelihood of them getting divorced, they don’t say there’s a two in five chance. They don’t give the rational answer. They say there’s a zero percent chance. Zero! Zilch! Nada! Those people ignore the facts and let optimism cloud their judgement.

  Likewise, a study by Neil Weinstein found that students thought they were 13% more likely than their classmates to receive an award, 32% less likely to suffer from lung cancer, and 49% less likely to get divorced. In reality, of course, their average chances would’ve been equal to the average chances of their peers. Some would have had a better chance, some would have had a worse chance, but it would have been ‘Zero Sum’ overall.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that optimism is always a bad thing. It can boost our self-confidence, which can propel us on to success. Whereas pessimism, on the other hand, can lead to depression.

  But, unfortunately, optimism can also encourage
us to act irrationally; to pursue unrealistic goals or continue on in jobs and relationships which make us miserable. We delude ourselves into believing that sunny days are just around the corner.

  Society encourages this. We’re told; ‘You can get it if you really want it. You just have to try, try, try!’ And we believe it. We work our arses off. We suffer, in the wildly optimistic hope that we’ll be rewarded with a better job, a better salary and a better life, at some mythical point in the future.

  In this sense, optimism can be a disease. And I think it’s a disease which we all suffer from. This optimism-epidemic, this blind-faith pandemic, dulls our rational capabilities and encourages us to accept our unhappy lives.

  At least that’s what I did.

  Even though I didn’t want to do it, I ploughed on through my degree because I was optimistic that it’d lead to a good job. Even though it seldom made a difference, I obeyed my bosses, teachers and parents, in the optimistic hope that it’d make them happy. Even though my previous relationships had never worked out, I was still optimistic that things would go well with Lorraine. And even though I wasn’t promoted whilst working as a fundraiser, I was still optimistic that I’d be promoted whilst working as a junior chef. I was optimistic that I’d become a head chef, with a permanent contract and a living wage.

  Albert Einstein once said that ‘insanity’ was ‘Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to achieve different results’. He was a clever chap, that Einstein fella. And, according to him, I must have been insane. Because I kept on working hard, and I kept on expecting to be rewarded, even though my hard work had never been rewarded before. I didn’t have any evidence to suggest that I’d be rewarded. It wasn’t a rational belief. It all came down to optimism. Blind, debilitating optimism.

  I turned up early and stayed late. I helped to train new members of staff. Whenever there was a quiet spell, I found something productive to do; cleaning, prepping or stock-taking. I worked through my breaks. And I followed all the rules.

  I never complained.