Paragraduates

This is a temporary autonomous zone. Or even a permanent autonomous zone.

They’ve seceded. They’ve given up on the world. Given up on politics. On philosophy, even. Unless their philosophy is a giving up of philosophy.

An idled philosophy: that’s what they’re pursuing. A philosophy that doesn’t try to do anything. That never seeks completion. To round itself off …

They don’t think in abstractions anymore. They don’t worry about the meaning of life. Or language. They just live. And living is … meaning. It’s a step beyond philosophy. Or maybe a step back from it.

They’ve reverted into some pre-adult state. And some pre-human state. Is that right, Sophia? You’re the expert. They’ve given up their … humanity. They’re … devolving.

 

They’ll never finish their PhDs – and that’s part of it. They’ve set off … in no particular direction. They’ve wandered away … with no particular goal.

They’re idle. They’ve lain down their tools. They’ve closed their laptops. They’ve put their books back on the shelf. Returned them to the library. They don’t read anymore. They don’t have to. They’ve read enough. They read everything, back in the day. And now they’re forgetting everything – nearly.

After learning, after study (but it’s also part of study) comes forgetting. After years of work, years of idleness. After the filling of the head, the time of the emptying of the head.

There’s a way of dwelling in … ignorance – is that the word? Unknowing – is that it? Non-knowing, so long as the non- is understood to be in now way privative.

It’s like a falling asleep, after all the years of alertness. It’s like dreaming from all the things you’ve forgotten.

 

When you give up, you relinquish your academic dreams. When you give up on the very idea of the university. When you let the rhythm of study take you outside. Away from the institution. From all bounded spaces.

When you just … cast off. Pull up your anchor. When you spacewalk, with no destination in mind. Just the vault of space around you. Just the great, dark immensity, and the lights flashing.

When you take the exit. Let yourself out. The exit into what? When you move away, just away. When you step into a greater sphere, and a still greater one. Farther up and farther in, and all that.

 

When you live wholly in Desire. In Eros. Where you seek after nothing. When you desire desire, that’s all.

The intensification of desire. An erotic … gap that can’t be closed. A waiting for waiting. When you look for nothing that isn’t already there.

Paragraduate Zen, right?

 

There are whole … landscapes of which we’re unaware. Thought-landscapes. Life-landscapes. They’re unimaginable. As though they’d discovered new colours.

 

And that’s what they’re turning this building into. It’s an institute for advanced study.

Study of what?

Just study. It doesn’t need an object.

 

They’ve undergone trials … spiritual trials. Philosophical trials – obviously. That we can’t imagine.

This is post philosophy. This is after philosophy, in some sense.

There are no more questions here. Or rather, they live within the question – the most profound question. They seek no answer. It’s about a turning of time. About time become … useless. Unproductive.

 

What’s the opposite of concentration? Of focus? That.

It’s an opening of the mind. Of the head. A taking-in of very deep breaths.

 

We can’t understand the level they’ve reached. The … state they’re in.

A blessed state – we can call it that, but we can have no idea of what it means. They’re a long way ahead of us or behind us. Or to the side of us. Adjacent to us, but in another dimension. A better dimension.

 

Fundamental research, that’s what they’re doing. That has no … impact. That isn’t for anything. Research that’s so deep that … So basic that …

 

We have to repent for our academic ambitions. For the papers we’ve written. For the books. Even for our PhD dissertations – for completing them. Even that is unforgiveable, for the paragraduates.

 

They want to remain within the eros of desire. To stay true to it – not to betray it. They don’t want to give up on their desire. Which isn’t to finish your work. Isn’t to bring it to term. Isn’t to conclude, but to … let it go, all of it. To let it disperse. Throw it into the longest grass and let it rot there, your drafts, your unfinished work. To let it be read by the sky. By the sun. By the air. To let its pages open for no one. Just blow open as the breeze catches them.

 

Abandonment. Giving up. A relinquishing of purpose. And the search for meaning. And the search for anything. All purposive thought. That’s what the paragraduates are about.