It was one of three old photographs of myself my family had dragged out. Although a number of years separated the pictures, I was wearing the same school uniform in all of them, which gave them an unnerving unity. In the first one I was about eight and was smiling straight into the camera. I looked so happy, I found it hard to recognise myself. The same face beamed from the next photo take three years later. Then there was the third photograph, the one when I was around 12, the one that instantly made everybody laugh. In between the giggling fits someone managed to spit out: "What on earth happened?"

It was undeniable that something had changed in those few years. It was more than bad lighting and a poor subject - my entire demeanor had altered: my eyes were downcast, the heavy metal spectacles I wore appeared to cut into my nose, my mouth had curled into a sneer, my hair had darkened to a lank mop. I had become "the thing".

As my family pointed and laughed I remembered what it was like to be 13 (because that seemed to happen a lot when I was 13). And I knew something they didn't: the way I look in that photograph is the way I see myself today.

That version of me - the thin-lipped myopic monster, the human toad, the creature from the back of the room - is the one I cannot erase. It's installed in my visual memory and no amount of "you-beaut-feel-good positivity" can dislodge it. We can spend a lifetime trying to escape those awkward adolescent moments but they lurk in the subconscious until conditions are ripe for them to return.

For me it lifts itself out of my psyche like a teenage Mr Hyde running quietly amok in my life. I'll be at a dinner party and there, sitting in my seat, is that gangly, acne-ridden, mouse-haired invertebrate. I wonder why the other guests have said nothing. I wonder how long I can get away with it before someone throws me out. I feel like great pretender waiting nervously to be uncovered.

My outward appearance has not changed but inwardly I am 13 again and I find myself picking the scab off an emotional scar. I find I am too frightened to speak, nervous and embarrassed, and any confidence I have has evaporated. I tell myself: it doesn't matter what's outside, it's what inside that counts. And what's inside is a throwback, a mutation, a stunned nondescript. Then as mysteriously as it appeared, "the thing" has gone.

The only saving grace is I'm not alone. There are some of us out there who have magnified one second of weakness for the duration of our lives: the girl who tucked her skirt into her undies, the boy who wet his pants just before the bell went, the slowest, the shortest. It could relate to a piece of jewellery, a pair of shoes, a shameful incident and it waits to be reborn.

Do people in positions of power confront these demons or are they forced to live with them as well? Does Clinton picture himself as clumsy, sexually illiterate youth when he speaks to Congress? Does Tony Blair recall miming to Beatles songs with hairbrush in his bedroom? Do their alter egos ever rise up in the moments of crisis and "go the spoil"? Is there any way of overcoming this stumbling block?

I tried for a while to replace the negative image with a positive one but nothing worked. I looked for things I could be proud of, I searched for any triumph or success, perhaps if I had won something, achieved something. It was a useless exercise - nothing I compared it to had the same power. I had to concede the weakness was victorious.

I can see the boundaries of my life, my limitations, the structures that enclose and surround me as clearly as the border of that photograph. As my mother slipped that photo into a frame and placed it on her sideboard, I couldn't help but feel he had won again. Even as I write he has been here. Crouching at my shoulder, whispering in my ear, grateful that I have given him shape.

We are faced with a complex and distressing dilemma in the modern age: we have too many choices. In our blind quest for ultimate freedom we have placed our daily liberty in jeopardy. everyday we are forced to make decisions ranging from the mind-bogglingly difficult to the blindingly simple. as the world contracts about us it has become far denser, far more impractical. we are inundated by information, overcome by difference and baffled by variety. I believe we have reached a point where we must make a decision about making decisions or we are may reach a point where the decision making process is all we are capable of.

The full terror of what the future holds was hammered home when I attempted to order breakfast at a common cafe. My request was simple enough: bacon and eggs on toast, a pot of tea and orange juice, but the conversation that followed left me dazed, confused and unable to eat.

"How do you want the bacon?" I thought this was a trick question and without meaning to be rude, replied: " Cooked...." The waitress stared at me with lifeless eyes. I suspect she made a quick and unjustified character assessment as she mumbled under her breath something that sounded like "arsehole".

"Do you want it streaky crisp, rindless, heavy on the fat, grilled or fried?" Bacon had always been bacon to me. There was no great mystery; you asked for it and it arrived. A strip of pig nestled beside the unborn embryos of chickens, was that too much to ask for?

"Eggs? Sunnyside up, over easy, runny, fried, poached, scrambled, hard-boiled, free range or battery?" I couldn't cope. I grabbed at the last word I heard. As it spluttered from my mouth I realised, too late. I shouldn't have said battery. The other customers stopped eating and peered at me in disgust. A sweat formed on my brow. I had become, in an instant, a social pariah. I needed to catch me breath. I have never suffered asthma but I wanted a blast of Ventolin. The waitress had me on the ropes; she could see the fear in my eyes and she continued, in her merciless fashion, to destroy me.

"Toast? White, vitamin-enriched, high-energy, brown, rye, sourdough, multi-grain, yeast-free, pumpernickel, Turkish, organic?"

Adrenaline pumped into my veins. I could hear my heartbeat as a dull thud in the centre of my body.

"Freshly squeezed orange juice or the other stuff?"

I could sense her readying for the kill but, for some reason, she took pity on me and moved slowly away from the table.

My inability to deal with the situation made me acutely aware of other similar circumstances, where multiplicity has made life difficult. Once everyone had the same haircut, listened to the same music, wore the same clothes, ate the same food and genuinely enjoyed life - then war came along and mined everything. Men and Women fought bravely for our freedom to choose, but they didn't have to contend with hundreds of different mobile-phone plans.

In the near future we must make the choice for less choice. We must decide to be indecisive, curtail our ever-expanding freedom and recover our liberty. Choice has always been promoted as a good thing, but anyone knows that a difficult decision can cause a great amount of distress. How much unnecessary anguish do we endure each and every day?

By the time the food arrived I had lost my appetite, but the waitress has one more surprise in store for me. A maniacal grin crossed her face.

"What type of milk do you want with your tea? Full cream, skin, calcium-enriched, iron-enriched, soy, low-fat or chocolate?"

These things come in threes. That's traditionally how you spot a trend. Presently there are only two incidents that I can cite, and that could leave us in the nebulous areas of coincidence. So I am waiting, as I never have before, for the next McDonald's TV advertisement.

McDonald's, the popular American hamburger chain, has always been an easy target for churlish members of society. They equate the type of universal appeal enjoyed by the store with crass marketing techniques and unlimited capital. They fuel their aggression with baseless criticisms: the wages are lousy, the food is unhealthy, the environment is destroyed to make packaging.

These virile and unjustified attacks are the result of an insane jealousy due to the restaurant's success and, more often than not, made by envious vitamin-deprived vegetarians. The last two ads I've seen from the many-tentacled mega-chain have taken these potentially negative situations and given them a positive spin.

The first encounters the accusation that the McDonald's monopoly's running small businesses into the ground, and that as a result the true "Aussie" burger has vanished from our landscape, never to return. In the advert a busload of footballers are taken by a sagely coach in search of the great lost "Aussie burger". (The distinguishing factor in the "Aussie burger" is the hunk of pre-cooked beetroot. In a country, which continuously mocks the ludicrous addition of a gherkin, can we really take pride in a vegetable which tastes like freshly washed dirt and turns the mouth magenta?) At a petrol station miles from civilisation he asks a kindly woman for a stack of real burgers. Meanwhile, the hubby whips out the back, past the unused griddle, and over to Macca's. It is here the only true "Aussie burgers" left in the country are found. The hubby returns and the satisfied coach and team hoe into the authentic taste of Australia without realising they've been duped.

What's the underlying message? 1. It doesn't matter that the Aussie burger has disappeared because the replica tastes the same, if not better. 2. The virtual admission that small establishments and family-run stores are disappearing because if McDonald's competition. 3. The proprietor's of struggling businesses are capable of deceiving their customers, if it means an easier life and a few extra bucks for them.

The second ad confronts the persistent questions about the nutritional value of the McDonald's meals. It's Saturday morning and the children are being selected for the teams. The smallest child, Brian, is one of the first to be picked. The reason (apart from the lame assertion, "he's quick") is because his father takes everyone to Macca's after the game.

What are we left to conclude? 1. The father is aware of his son's failing as an athlete and takes the only course left open to a father with a weak son - he buys him friends. 2. The son, raised on a diet of weekly post-sport Macca's, is undeveloped, pale and unpopular. The father, who appears at the end of the ad, is by comparison fit and dynamic. Ergo, as the boy's genetic stock is good, the only conclusion that can be reached is that his weekly diet is responsible for his unhealthy state

What ads may we see in the future? Ronald revealing he's not really a clown but a mascot for a multi-national exploiting the tastebuds of children? Cows delirious with joy as they head towards the abattoir? Adolescents frivolously buying Mercedes with the fortune they've made serving fries and Coke?

Whatever happens in the future I applaud this brave, if somewhat confusing, advertising campaign. Until we see the next ad remember: an apple pie away keeps the doctor away.