People act based on the trust they have in the voice in their head. People addicted to something, and maybe even to addiction. People appeal to the authority of their own experience but require everyone else to have paid their dues to a professional association. People are definitely not the same everywhere and you tell this just by looking at them, or talking to them, or listening to them. People are keenly aware that there are all kinds of people but that there are many ways in which all people are alike, and sometimes unnervingly alike. People are more or less conscientious at different points in their lives. People are more or less in tune with reality. People are more or less unaware that they’re naïve. People are more or less, more or less. People are the same everywhere, or so people say; but do you believe it? People are very different when they’re around other people, so if you want to know who you really are, stay away from other people. People are very different when they’re around other people, so if you want to know who someone else really is, don’t tell them you’re watching. People are well-advised to keep their opinions to themselves. People ask if it’s possible to make a low-carb cheesecake, either with a crust or with no crust at all. People ask if they can ask a question before they ask a question. People ask if they can call you and expect that you will answer the text message immediately. People ask if they can call you instead of just calling you. People ask if they can finish work early. People ask if they can use a Christmas cake recipe to make an Easter fruit cake. People assess where they are in the pecking order. People assess whether a just outcome has been reached or if more struggle, pain, and bullshit are required. People assess whether an explanation is complete, or complete enough. People assess whether it is the right moment to put up their hand. People assess whether something is a threat or a challenge. People assess whether the building is going to stay ‘up.’ People assess whether there’s something to be gained from ‘friending’ you. People assess whether they’ve endured enough discomfort before going to the dentist to get more. People assess whether things are the right price.
People being interviewed sometimes answer Yes to every proposal about what their art means. People believe in other people. People believe in themselves. People believe stupid shit. People believe that things are going to turn out OK. People believe what the voice in their head tells them, even though it’s not an actual voice. People believe what the voice in their head tells them, unless it turns out to be someone else’s voice. People belong to an ethnic minority and religious majority. People bullshitting you often proceed without any regard for alethic modalities.
People can be differentiated and categorised by what or whom they ‘love.’ People can be intolerant of intolerance. People can change. People can love death and love loving death. People can love life and love loving life. People can no longer distinguish artificial intelligence personas from humans in a Turing test. People can no longer expect a job for life. People can no longer read a book or watch a movie without the assurance of a trigger warning. People can no longer wait one week for the next episode of anything. People can serve at tennis without grunting. People can sing without smiling. People can talk without smiling. People change. People click ‘Love’ all day. People compulsively verbalising find it nigh-on impossible to meditate or even to think straight. People copulate.
People die unexpectedly. People disagree about how to solve the most important questions of our time. People distinguish between ‘poetry’ and ‘prose.’ People divide themselves into more and more tribes. People do ‘give a shit.’ People do, that’s true. People don’t ‘give a shit,’ that’s also true.
People enter monasteries. People enter new phases. People enter through entrances. People enter writing ‘competitions.’
People fabricate lies, as if those lies were made of whole cloth. People fall off their high horses. People fantasise about the strangest things. People fellate, if they’re that way inclined. People fiddle about with violins. People flip burgers. People fly aeroplanes.
People get a high-interest loan to build a house of cards. People get high. People get pregnant, and these people are often called ‘women.’ People get taken for a ride. People get Ubers. People go bananas. People go crazy. People go places. People go to extraordinary lengths. People grizzle and moan. People grow up.
People hankering for sushi, or pickles, or almond croissants. People have no fucking idea what is going on. People hear the voice in their head singing. People hip-hop their way to the Olympic Games to break-dance their hearts away. People hobnob with people they think are dickheads.
People imagine other people getting killed. People interpret stories as stories about themselves, about people they know, and about the places they know, filling in gaps and plastering over scenes that are outside of their experience; and this suggests there is a strong relationship between reading fiction and dreaming.
People judge other people. People judge others to make sense of chaos by forming opinions and categories, or to avoid thinking about their own shame or inadequacy.
People know there are no dumb questions because it’s sometimes useful to force ourselves to give the answers we think we know. People know there are people who argue the world is flat just to see how annoying they can be. People know there are people who think the world is flat. People know there are those among you who have already decided that being obtuse is the best rhetorical strategy for putting people in their place. People know there are unexpected events, like ‘plot twists,’ and these could be interpreted as detours.
People learn from pain. People learn how to read. People learn how to speak, in their head, to themselves, as they read. People learn to cope with longing. People longing to be loved. People longing to love and be loved. People love longing and sometimes love it more than love.
People miscalculate their dance moves. People move things from one place to another place because they’re in the trucking business. People move things from one place to another place, and they follow the things there.
People naturally tend to organise experiences and memories into narratives. People naturally tend toward inertia, or is it entropy? People never change. People nitpick, criticise, and undermine.
People over sixty years-of-age, with a good general knowledge of popular music or cinema, could reasonably be expected to know the song to which the title of this story refers.
People parent little people. People plan all their working lives for retirement. People play banjos. People play chess. People play what they say are games, but which do not involve ‘playing’ in the way that word is normally used. People play with themselves. People play word games. People point at stuff and suggest it is amusing or interesting. People populate the planet. People prompt memories by presenting alphabetically organised propositions. People prompt thoughts and feelings in much the same way. People pupple papple pipple pepple poople.
People quartered anyone who attempted regicide, tying their limbs to four horses and tearing them apart. People question whether John Lennon could, really, have been a good person if he spat in customers’ sandwiches when he worked at Liverpool Airport. People quibble about the most trivial things when there is something important on their minds. People quiz other people.
People read stories aloud to themselves. People read themselves into everything they read. People remember best what they want to remember. People remember some things they would prefer not to remember. People remember what they have done. People remember who they were. People remember, sometimes with pride and sometimes with shame. People remind us of stuff we’d prefer to forget or would enjoy remembering. People revolting against the revolution. People revolting. People ritualise remembering and forgetting, though they tend to do the forgetting on their own and with rituals that are private.
People say they ‘Like’ something when they really don’t give a shit. People shout ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre, but not as often as you might have been led to believe. People speak appalling French.
People take care of their parents. People think about death, morning, noon, and night. People think about fat people. People think about getting married. People think about the people they think are attractive. People think of their lives as a story. People think so-and-so is a real character. People think so-and-so is a son-of-a-such-and-such. People think so-and-so is an arsehole. People thought it seemed like a good idea at the time. People tolerant of intolerance. People toss salad. People trust the voice in their head, even though it is not really a voice, does not make a sound, and seems to stand within us, helping us to rehearse our lines. People try to pretend their demands for justice aren’t simply a deflection of their personal misery.
People unafraid to announce they have unpopular opinions. People unafraid to speak in public. People unassumed to be afraid, or assumed to be unafraid, sometimes turn out to be chicken.
People vacate just before going forth. People vociferate more and more because there are more and more ways to do it. People vote against the revolution. People vote ‘Labour’ or ‘Labor,’ depending on the country in which they are voting.
People want to get a prize for some complaint about how other people behave. People who are ‘my’ people. People who are always ‘honored’ to be the object of even a sycophant’s attention. People who are loners. People who are Marxists, despite all the evidence. People who are Rousseau-ists and want to take other people’s children away and give those kids a good talking-to. People who are someone else’s people. People who are sophisticated. People who are tribal. People who believe that fiction can still be fiction if it has no story. People who believe they are ‘sophisticated.’ People who don’t know what art is but know what it is when they see it. People who go on long walks. People who have lists of people who will come to their next launch or opening. People who know they are alone and no one and nothing is ever coming to save them from being alone. People who would prefer not to know or ever to have thought they are alone. People who know what art is but don’t like saying that they know what art is when they see something that is not art. People who like country music, or even reggae. People who make a profession out of ‘workshopping’ poetry. People who make a profession out of being a gatekeeper of good taste. People who make a profession out of choosing between one thing and another thing. People who make a profession out of judging which are the best cheeses. People who make a profession out of teaching people to write business emails. People who make a profession out of writing complicated sentences. People who no longer confess or admit to any human frailty. People who think about how they will be remembered. People who think about the best way to stay off the primrose path to hell. People who think they are loners but are not really loners. People who understand how scare quotes are used. People who will mull over their legacy. People who wonder if they have left their mark. People with ‘artistic’ jobs. People with artistic ‘hobbies.’ People with sinecures. People wonder about how things are going to turn out. People wonder if anyone really has the faintest idea. People wonder if they’re going to be ‘found out.’ People wonder what their pets know about them. People worry about different shit when they’re rich. People worry about money, health, relationships, and sleep. People worry about the wrong things. People worry that worrying can be harmful.
People x-ray luggage at airports because, you know, your stuff might have cancer. People xenotransplant pig organs to save a life—even though it kills the pig. People xerox unimportant documents because the tax office might need the copies later. People xylograph forest scenes into pieces of timber.
People yearning for fulfilment. People yearning for more from life. People yearning for more from the people they thought were their partners but who turned out to be a dead weight attached to the prospect of happiness. People yearning for more than just whatever they have a hankering for.
People zapping each other are generally of the superhero kind, or electricians. People zeroise data they say is sensitive when, really, it’s just porn. People zhoosh their hair much more often and for much longer than most people would guess and then feel disappointed or defeated because the zhooshing has not had the intended effect. People zigzagging all over the road as they drive home from whatever party they’ve ruined by over-drinking, over-sharing, and over-opining. People zoom in to see the detail, even of things that disgust them. People zoos are a thing of the past—so, remember that.
People-people are really impressive. People-people get along with people-persons, generally. People-people or dog-people. People-people people the planet, while they’re being people-people, and later go on to be parents raising little people who may or may not turn out to be people-people. People-people periodically purchasing poodles.
People—if they are needy people—like needing other people.
People, as Freud said, find life too hard because it brings too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks, and in order to bear it (‘life,’ that is) take palliative measures—deflections, which cause them to make light of their misery; substitutive satisfactions, which diminish it; and intoxicating substances, which make them insensitive to it:1 and, people, people will tell you, people think that’s really good news and you should take heart and not be so hard on yourselves.
- Paraphrasing Sigmund Freud’s Civilisation and its Discontents (1930). ↩︎
Stephen J. Williams 
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