Step One: Remove all mirrors.
Reflections cause rebellion.
They suggest, even for a second, that someone might be wrong about themselves.
Replace them with applause — foam-lined, ethically harvested, genetically engineered to nod at everything.
Step Two: Inscribe the Oath.
Nothing I make is wrong.
Nothing I make is finished.
Say it three times while drinking something bitter enough to sting the tongue.
Say it in the morning, at noon, and at night, or the walls will smell your doubt.
Step Three: Feed abstraction to the herd.
Meaning is outdated.
Effort is fascist.
Clarity is terrorism.
Teach them to nod like rocks.
Nods are cheaper than insights.
Step Four: Enforce pack behavior.
Because predators hunt alone,
and the prey must flock for dear life.
Solitude is lethal.
Silence is criminal.
If anyone whispers truth, administer a gentle slap of political correctness
and a half-hour lecture on the importance of surface lies peddled as feelings.
Step Five: Handle accidents mercifully.
Sometimes something real slips through.
It bleeds.
It sweats.
It smells of work.
Do not comfort it.
Do not congratulate it.
Smother it in dismissive adjectives,
and politely call it a glitch
until it stops twitching.
Step Six: Incentivize chaos.
Reward confusion.
Confusion cannot be wrong.
Confusion cannot fail.
Confusion is delicious.
Confusion smells faintly of gluten-free snacks and pretend art.
Step Seven: Implement the reciprocity economy.
You clap for me.
I clap for you.
We call this community.
We call it healing.
We call it safety.
Never call it what it is:
cowardice for currency.
Step Eight: Polish the language.
Asshole is holy water.
Spray generously on anyone bringing light, honesty, or work.
It kills germs.
It kills conscience.
It keeps the herd intact.
Step Nine: Spot the artists.
They wander in occasionally.
They smell like effort and poor hygiene.
They limpingly carry unfinished things that hum with honesty.
Do not approach.
Do not clap.
Do not breathe in their direction.
Step Ten: Confess quietly.
I stayed too long once.
I clapped.
I nodded.
I smiled at mediocrity.
I even called it networking.
I almost called it art.
I almost forgot how teeth feel.
Step Eleven: Wait for the artists to leave.
They always do.
They carry their unfinished things.
They leave dust, not echoes.
They leave truth, not applause.
Step Twelve: Celebrate survival.
Exhale.
Nothing has been risked.
Nothing has been questioned.
Nothing has been hurt.
Step Thirteen: Maintain the autopsy room equilibrium.
Soft, padded, climate-controlled.
Where ideas never age
because the dead are forever young.
Where noise is mandatory
because silence is an excuse for the dead to speak up.
Step Fourteen: Begin again.
Reheat the lies.
Re-stack the cardboard crowns.
Turn the applause up to eleven.
Start a new panel.
Pretend enthusiasm is oxygen.
Smile at your own incompetence.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Because boredom is illegal,
and death hasn’t arrived, just yet.
Step Fifteen: The finishing touch:
Laugh.
Laugh because you survived art.
Laugh because you aced the circus of fake it till you make it.
Laugh because you convinced the herd you were a genius.
Laugh because art believes in democracy
and democracy belongs to the herds.
Bow. Clap. Smile.
You’ve not just survived art;
you’ve become the inseparable lie in the epidermis of its skin.
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