Work in Progress

Livia raised us. Livia suckled us. Like wild cubs. Livia took us in. Livia fostered us. It was a philosophical fostering. You need a philosophical parent, for philosophical fostering. You need a role model. An exemplar. Someone whose life you could imitate. Who lived philosophy as a spiritual practice.

Livia practically gave birth to us. Livia practically suckled us. Of course, you’re a philosophical child for a very long period. Until your mid thirties. Only then will you become an adult. Only then are you weaned. Can you wipe the milk from your mouth …

In the ruins – really, it’s only even been about the ruins of European thought, for us. We’ve only ever know the aftermath. The after-party.

The party of continental philosophy’s over, essentially. It hasn’t been cleared away, the party; there are still a few stragglers, sipping last bottles of wine, but it’s essentially over. The thrill has gone.

Thought has moved on, perhaps. It’s somewhere else, or perhaps nowhere. But we’re still alive, somehow. We latecomers, amusing ourselves among the scraps. The scapings … Looking out for souvenirs …


There are high times in the life of thought … brief, brilliant bursts. And then the falling away. Then the dying of the light. Then the dimming of the day.

No more fireworks. No more shouts of triumph. No more hullaballoo. No more masterworks.

It’s the hangover. Its the perpetual day after. A time for European bathos, and everyone knows it, even if they pretend they don’t.


The truth of the ruins – that we alone know. To which we alone belong.


At least we recognize the ruins as the ruins. At least we’re not pretending that the party’s sill going.

We want the ruins. We want the ruination. This is where we make sense, in the ruins. This is where we belong, as ruiners – in the ruins.


We’ve been waiting for the ruins all our lives. We’ve always wanted the excuse of the ruins: it’s all ruined, so what can we do? Haven’t we wanted to say that to ourselves? It’s all over, so what role might we have?

The comfort of the ruins. Being at home in the ruins. Wanting the ruins, all along. So as to be able to explain ourselves. Account for ourselves.


We couldn’t do much because of the ruins. Nothing could be expected of us because of the ruins. It was the ruins’ fault. We have the ruins’ alibi. We always wanted to give the ruins as an excuse.

These weren’t the times. There was nothing we could do. There was nothing for it.


Who are we going to be, in the ruins?

Will we really come into our own here? Will we really make sense here? Will we really not have to be explained? Accounted for?


The ruins are our milieu. Our territory. We can exhale here. Relax.

Nothing is expected of us. There are no magnum opuses to be written in the ruins. We don’t have to whip ourselves through the most difficult writings. We need expect nothing more of ourselves.

After all, what can you do, in the ruins? Just lie back. Nothing to be done, right? And isn’t that beautiful? No more work, and the desire to work. So-called work. Imitation work. Faux busyness. No more of that.


The ruin excuse. The ruin alibi. The ruin ruse. If only we were allowed to live forever in the ruins. Then we’d become true idlers. True enjoyers of the world. True sybarites.

We’d make sense! Where there is no sense. Where nothing means anything.


Nothing to see here. Nothing to be done here. Nothing to be here.

No appointments to be kept. Nothing to be taught; no lectures to be written. Nothing to be marked. No assessments in the ruins. Let it lead nowhere. Let the ruin-wind blow away our works in progress. Let the ruin-computer-bug wipe away our Word files …

Mother wants our Gnosticism. She wants to understand why would reject all her worlds. She wants to know why we’re turned to the other of all worlds. To the earth, the restful earth!

Mother wants the secret of our katabasis. She wants to know why we seek to descend into the earth, to find the earth. Mother wants to know why we want to be disgusted. Organisational Management wants to know!


Organisational Management wants to watch us in the ruins.


Our katabasis – our fall. Has Organisational Management ever fallen? Does she know what it is to fall? To descend?


Organisational Management wants the low. We’re the ones from whom it can learn.


Organisational Management wants to seize upon the unmanageable as the unmanageable. The unorganizable as the unorganizable. She wants the darkness – in its darkness.

Why? To do what?

To increase its dominion.

No – to rest from being Organisational Management. Organisational Management, too, wants to lay down its arms.


Mother wants our Gnosticism and Gnosticism in general. She wants our despair. She wants to learn everything – even the unlearnable.


Mother wants to learn disgust. And the philosophy of disgust. And philosophy that is grounded in disgust.

There’s something Mother wants to learn. There’s a message Mother wants to draw from us.

Mother wants to read the Book of Idiocy. She wants to restage it. To replay it – to replay us. The whole Philosophy-in-Organisational-Management fiasco.

Mother’s idiocy-mining. Mother’s looking to discover the secret of our idiocy. Mother wants to drill down into our idiocy. Mother wants her own katabasis. She wants to descend into our profounds.

When we want to lay our burden down, that’s when we really take up our burden. When our strength is exhausted, that’s when we have to show our strength. When we’re on our knees, that’s when we have to walk. When we’ve exhausted our mission – all missions – that’s when our mission begins. When we reach the state of perfect uselessness – that’s when we discover our use.


When we’re finished, that’s when we begin. When we’re at our wit’s end, that’s when we’ll find our wits. At the end of the longest night, that’s when we’ll find our morning. At the end of our deepest bender, that’s where we’ll find our sobriety. When we’ve died, utterly died to the world, that’s when we’ll find the world, and our life in the world. When there’s not a thought in our heads, that’s when we’ll begin to think; when we’ll have our first thoughts.

Our rat’s maze. Our rat’s nest. Our lair of stupidity.


Our rhythms. Our roundelay. The round and round of our banter. The eternal return of our having nothing to say.


We object! We object to everything. We raise our voices – cry out! Shout out!

We shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t exist. We shouldn’t be – and who made us be? Whose fault is this?  Why should we be?


Thrashing at the end of the line. Thrashing – and that’s our life, that’s thrashing. That’s who we are, that thrashing.


We’ve been caught in a trap. And we cry out because we’ve been caught in a trap. And the trap is life. And the trap is our lives. And the trap is time. Our lives, our time.


We sound it out – sound out the alarm. Which is really our alarm. Which is really the alarm of us.

We’re crying out, like car alarms. We’re thumping into the night. We’re screaming like banshees. A screaming in everything we say. Everything we do.

This is potential. Things separate from their uses.

They’re hardly things.

Things becoming unnameable. Becoming too heavy for names …


Things, refusing their names and refusing to be things.

We’re where it’s most wrong, the wrongness.


Where Livia brought us. Where Livia placed us, knowing what would happen.


Something’s wrong. Our very lives are wrong. Our very hearts are wrong. Our laughter – even our laughter is wrong.


Something’s wrong. And we’re the Most Wrong. We’re the place where wrongness knows itself. Where the wrongness is most deeply concentrated.


Livia knew we were Wrong, capital W. She knew it was a state of being, our Wrongness. And she knew that she had to deepen our Wrongness. To make it worse. And to bring us into awareness of our Wrongness. To awaken us – really awaken us – to our Wrongness.

To make Wrongness reflect on itself. Know itself. See itself in the mirror. That’s what she wanted?

And then what?

And then Wrongness would speak. The Wrong would speak, and in our inverted world, it would become the Right. It would become Rightness. The Wrong would invert itself and become the Right. The Low would inverted and become the High – and even the Most High. Wasn’t that Livia’s mission?


She was casting out demons. She was casting us out. She was casting me out. Because I’m a demon. Because I’m wrong – all of me is wrong. And I thrash about in wrongness. I scream in wrongness. I devour myself in wrongness. And all I want is to be released. I want the weight lifted – my own weight. I want the stone lifted – my own stone. The stone of my life.

Who did this to us? Who made us? What are we for?

We’re for nothing. We were born to be destroyed. We’re offerings, that’s all.  But offerings to what? What purpose are we meant to serve?

The opposite of purpose. The mockery of purpose. But that’s the point.


Who did this to us?

Livia did it. Livia made it happen.

Livia was the author – our author. Livia made us happen – like this. Brought us together. Assembled us. Formed our collective. Gave us our names, our new names.


Who made us? What demon? What mocker? What hater? What monster?

Who made us like this? Who stretched us between heaven and hell?


Who made us capable of asking who made us?


Who did this to us?

Livia. Livia did it.

On purpose?

She knew, in her own way, what she served.

The devil?

God, in her own way. The divine plan, in her own way. Her demonism was her divinity. Her hatred was love.

That’s the sort of thing she’d say.


Livia Knew. She had an instinct. She assembled us. Like a team of superheroes.


Livia’s plan. Livia’s scheme. Livia’s machinations.


Livia served God. Livia was divine, not demonic. Or even in her demonism, she served God. Nothing happens without God wanting it. Not the slightest thing.