Philosophy, to us, was an atmosphere. Wa a climate. Was a temperament. Was a temperature.
It was a perfume. A haze. A rumour. It was a pattern of drift. A current. A warm front. A movement of air in air. Of water in water.
We weren’t hard edged. We weren’t tough-minded. We didn’t have sharpened teeth, spiritually. We weren’t philosophical predators. Philosophical big-beasts. We weren’t philosophical Jack the rippers. Cut throats. We weren’t pirates, on the high seas of philosophy.
Skulkers, instead. All huggers. Avoiders. Recluses. The type who wanted only to hide out with their books. To live in disguise. In retreat. To inhabit philosophical dens. To descend into their philosophical burrows.
We weren’t self-promoters. Freebooters. We avoided philosophical discussions. We were no good at it, philosophical to and fro. We were inept in debate.
Philosophical talk would only leave us flustered. Panicked. Saying any old nonsense. Coming up with any old thing. Standing there bewildered. Scratching our heads. Dumbfounded.
No, no, we didn’t want debate. We didn’t want our ideas, our so-called ideas, tested. We didn’t want to venture out on philosophical public. Even giving papers was anathema to us. We didn’t have the skills. We feared the exposure.
We didn’t like to justify ourselves. To argue. To reason, even – not in public. We didn’t want to be seen to think. To extrapolate. To improvise. Even to read our own words.
Unbearable – our own words! Everything we’d ever written. And said! Everything we’d said! Ever! To say more was only to deepen the sin. Let alone writing more. Let alone publishing.
It would just make things more entangled. To compromise ourselves more deeply.
That we had to exist! That we were supposed to write more! That there was more time! That we were going to live longer! That we weren’t just going to pop out of existence! Just be destroyed!
And why was that – why wouldn’t God destroy us? Why wouldn’t he just take us out, all at once?
Proof, if it was needed, that God didn’t exist. Proof, if it were needed, that the archons were in charge. That the demi-urge was the level-boss of this world.
That we existed! That we were made to live on! Teaching philosophy and even writing philosophy! What agony! What tragedy! Only it didn’t rise to tragedy, not really. It was too pathetic for that.
On our minds: only the end, only non-existence. Resting our heads in death. Falling asleep in nothingness. The lure of the void.
No, we were not to be alive. It wasn’t for us, this being alive.
Time: we didn’t want it! No more time! No more minutes! No more seconds! No more agony – the agony of hours. That it wasn’t the End! That the apocalypse hadn’t come! That the roll wasn’t being called up yonder was agony to us. That the Man had yet to come around. That the last judgment was delayed – infinitely so!
Work in Progress 