Got to Keep on Moving

"Got to keep on moving, got to keep on moving, hell hound on my trail..."

Keep moving, keep busy, bury your head in work – create work if needs be. Don’t stay still long enough for people to focus on you. When you’re still your only defense is talk – to talk it up, to gossip, to big note, to allay others suspicions. Don’t get trapped in the spotlights. Be a hunter, not the hunted. Keep the wheels in motion when others are about, and think and stop when you are in solitude.

The only time you can stop is for practical reasons. You can lean up against a wall outside at work, but only if you're having a smoke. You can sit on the bank of a river, but only with a fishing rod in your hand.

Use the old pen trick or piece of paper in hand trick. Walk around quickly and with a concerned frown, especially if you are coming back late from lunch. Do as I did today. Pulled my pen out of my pocket, walked into the office tapping the pen on my other hand and walking with purpose. The boss walked past me and didn’t say a word.

Or use the old Pete H pen clicking trick. You walk in, he’s on the computer - probably just playing minesweeper or something. He locks his terminal, leans back, and clicks his pen on and off twenty or thirty times rapidly. Then he just gets up and walks off like he's got something important to do.

We all feel a need to keep the wheels turning, because if we stop in view of our colleagues we can feel their stares cutting through us, and seeing the true hopeless frauds we really are. They can see us lonely, frightened, with an itchy groin and sweaty armpits, staring down the barrel of oblivion. They can see how far short we fall from the impossible heights we set for ourselves.