Haven’t we always dreamt that there’s something about us? That we could contribute in some way – to philosophy? To thought? Because of our incompetence. Not in spite of it, but because of it.
That we could bring to thought something only we could bring. Something utterly particular. Something of ourselves. Of our singular idiocy. Of the unique terroir of our idiocy.
That there’s a unique quality to our philosophical writing. There to be savoured by those in the know. By those who’d understand. That might be appreciated by connoisseurs. Like private press jazz, or something. Like Light in the Attic records.
Something worth hunting down. Tracking down. Doing the equivalent of crate-digging, but in academia. That we’d strike, in our papers, a tone – a unique tone, a particular tone. That no one else could strike.
That was unique to us! That we’d ring our particular bell. Sound our idiosyncratic sound!
And maybe someone would collect our work, afterwards. Maybe someone would approach us at a conference and say: I liked your article on X. On Y. That we’d find ourselves referenced in one footnote or another.
Keen young scholars would be idly look up the rest of our oeuvre. Would search for our articles. Print them out.
That we’d be a name for seekers-after-forgotten things to share. Obscure authors – but authors unlike any others. Notable. Idiosyncratic.
That we wouldn’t have gone entirely unnoticed. That we’d left some testimony of our passage through European philosophy. Of what we were! Of what we couldn’t help but be!
That we’d said something of our existence on earth. Of the kind of people we were. We had not lived entirely in vain.
We’d written a few things that only we could have written. That only people like us could have written. Like us: but there was no one like us. That, on our death beds, there was something that we’d done. Something that set us apart, if only a little.
A few articles, here and there. Published in some scattered low-ranked journals. Barely read by anyone. Barely cited. But there, nonetheless. Showing up on scholarly search engines. Our life’s work!
A few articles. Maybe even a book or two. that’s what we’d have to show. That was all we’d done. But enough! Not nothing! We hadn’t entirely failed, though we hadn’t succeeded, either.
There was something odd about us. We weren’t entirely mediocre. Our course through academic life wasn’t entirely predictable.
We’d lived up to the promise we’d had as primary school students. In our sixth form studies? In our first year as undergraduates?
We weren’t entirely ungifted. We didn’t give up – not entirely. We didn’t fall back into non-production. We weren’t content to publish nothing at all. We didn’t hang up our writing boots. We didn’t lay down our arms.
We persisted – in our foolishness, it’s true. Never triumphing over our foolishness. Never leaving it behind, our foolishness. We never anything other than fools. But still, we were writing fools. And wasn’t that our achievement?
We stayed in and wrote. On summer days, we wrote. When we should have been outside in the sun, we wrote – we tried to write. When we should have been out with our friends – we wrote. When we should have been living a life – we wrote, or tried to write. We stayed in. We bent over our desks. We read – God knows, we read! And we wrote – or tried to write.
And who were we to try to write? How were we entitled to try to write? Were we top of our years at uni? Were we top of our cohorts in our first year of study; in our second? Did we graduate with the highest first in our year?
No, in each case. We never excelled – at that level. We didn’t do fantastically. Great things weren’t predicated of us. No one ever called us brilliant. But we wrote – or we tried to write.
Undeterred. Never put off. But why not? Shouldn’t we have been put off? Shouldn’t we have thrown in our towels? Isn’t there an honour in accepting defeat? We continued. We wrote on. Day followed day, and we didn’t give up.
Was there virtue in that? Sometimes, we thought we were just sullying the Earth. That we were only multiplying our stupidity. Our mediocrity. Making it spread.
And at other times? We could never justify it, our time spent doing this, and not other things. There was no convincing excuse. No alibi. And yet … But yet …
We carried on. We wrote. An excuse for having failed in every other part of our lives? As an excuse for staying inside for virtually the whole of our lives?
Because we didn’t like to go out. Because we didn’t like to be in public. Because we were introverts. Because being with other people just tortured us.
Because a room full of strangers was a terrifying thing. Because emerging into the world after a day of writing was surfacing into a nightmare. Because the cacophony of the social world was a little too much.
We had our Projects. We were Busy, each in our own ways. We had our glorified hobby.
We were unsociable. Because we didn’t have anything to say, not really. Not to the civilians. Not to those outside the academy. And to those inside it … well.
We were no good at dinner parties. We were no good, socialising at conferences.
Which is why we wanted to enclose Writing around ourselves. Why we wanted to disappear into our Writing tent. Hole up with our books, with our PDFs, with an open Word document.
We wanted to retreat. Tactically. Actually. To be alone in a room. To read and write, alone in a room.
That we hoped was quiet. That we hoped could be airy. That we hoped could be warm, or cool in the summer. That we decorated with things to help us write. To remind us of the importance of write. That we filled with the great cultural treasures of the past.
We’d read and write our lives away. And that was our lives – reading and writing our lives away. We’ll hold the world at bay – through our reading and writing. We’d keep hopelessness at arm’s length – by way of the hope of our writing; of the hope that we’d write something good. And we’ll never ask for much – except the conditions under which we can read and write.
We will have lived our life for something – wouldn’t that be it? We will have tried to do something with our lives. We will have tried to be certain people. We will have given up on our Desire.
Work in Progress 