Descent

Thought’s on a katabasis, too – of course it is. Thought has been driven into the earth. Thought wants to go down, only down. And it’s forced to go down. Because there’s no place for thought in this world.

Just as there’s no place for us.

It’s inevitable that we descend. That we go down. In search of a place we can be. A place we can bear.

Whereas really what we want is to find the other of all places, postgraduates. The final shadow. The final darkness. The final secret, where we can lay down our heads.


What is study ever but a descent, postgraduates? But a journey downwards, in the darkness? What has study ever been but a voyage into oblivion?

A tomb: isn’t that what we’re looking for? Somewhere to be buried?


A descent into death. But we’re familiar with death. We know death inside out.

Death, doing its death thing: we’re used to that. We even revel in that.

We feel comfortable among the shades. What have the great European philosophers been to us but shades. What was reading their work for us but a descent to be among the shades?