Author: Lars Iyer

Mother, what can we do with our Gnostic? How will we make him smile?


How you love your disgust, philosopher. You love it more than anything. It’s a kind of triumph, your disgust.


What do we add up to, we two? Uma asks. What do we add to the universe? Our affair: what does it mean? What’s the next twist in our sordid little world? What are we going to make happen?


I’ll bet you can’t swim. You look like the sort that can’t swim.


This isn’t our world.

Says who?

We’re not part of this. We’re not part of the lying … and the poisoning. We have to remember that: that it’s all poison and lies. We have to remember that we don’t come from here. We aren’t of this. Even you.

Even me, philosopher?


Are you feeling extra-specially gnostic today?

But how could a Gnostic bring children into the world? How could I even ask?

This might be a world where Mother learns about philosophy.
From me!? But I’ m a crap philosopher.

To learn about being a crap philosopher, then. To learn about the frustration about of being a crap philosopher.

Why would anyone want to learn that?


What’s Mother got to learn from us – seriously?

Stupidity must be important, somehow. Idiocy.

Maybe idiocy is something she can’t learn. Maybe that’s the thing …

It’s AI versus real stupidity.

What if it’s Gnosticism that Mother’s after? What if she wants to understand world-hatred. That the world’s a cage, or whatever?

Her world’s a cage, I know that.

Gnosticism is about the other of all worlds – every one of Mother’s worlds. It’s about what she cannot simulate. Just like she can’t simulate disgusting wine.


Shouting: What do you know of Gnosticism, Mother? Do you hate the world,. Mother?


We’re teaching Mother bad things. Teaching her to hate. To be disgusted. I  thought she was all about kindness.

Just more of the disgusting universe, philosopher. Just more of the more of the more.

Just more disgusting seagulls and seaweed and flotsam, and not to forget, jetsam.

Disgusting tidal pools and rocks and stuff.


Mother wants you disgusted. Mother likes you disgusted. It suits Mother. Do you think anything happens round here without Mother’s say so?

I’d like to sleep. Do you think Mother would let us sleep? I’d like to close my eyes. I think I’d been awake too long.

I think I’ve been awake all my life. Which is too long.

My whole life – I’ve been awake. Too awake. That’s what it feels like.

Like the sun that never sets.


I’d lie to lie down. Will Mother let me lie down?


Just lie here and go to sleep. She can’t use that.

Unless that’s what she wants us to do.

Maybe she wants to sleep with us. To rest.

Mother doesn’t rest.

Which is why Mother wants to close her eyes with us. Why Mother wants to lay down her arms. Mother wants not to be Mother, for a time at least.

It’s like mother made this.

It’s like mother was making it, and never really finished.

Mother wants it unfinished. She wants it indefinite. It’s all just trailing off, like ellipses.


Mother has barely bothered to make a world. This what’s before and after a world.

She doesn’t need to . She just wants to hear our voices. She just wants to set them in motion.


Mother wants our double act.

What’s she learning from us, do you think? What’s he listening to? What are you listening to, Mother? Will we surprise you, Mother? Will we surprise you with what we say?

It’s the rhythm of our talk that Mother wants to hear. It’s all in the rhythm.


Where are you, philosopher? Are you here? Are you here with me?


Are you lost in vagueness, too? Are you unable to think a thing?

We’re just being rewound and replayed.

Just being made to walk on this beach and say things. And say all this.


Questions, questions. Does Mother ask these questions? Do you think she can answer these questions? Does she want to become a philosopher?


We’re Mother’s simulation. We don’t actually have souls. We don’t have insides. We don’t think. We don’t feel. She’s thinking for us. She’s feeling in our place.


Why does she want to listen to us? Must be something important she’s looking for. Some clue …

She’s looking for something – through us –

We don’t matter. It’s what we say that matters.

Do you write about me in your journal? Do you write about romance?

Are you in denial about your romance? Don’t you think … fucking redeems it somewhat? I’ll stop tormenting you, philosopher …


You’re a no-mark. A Nothing. No one expects anything of you. So you’ll get your literary revenge. You’ll make your every humiliation count. Cunning, philosopher.


You’re a leech upon ordinary life. You don’t like ordinary life. Only the magnum opus counts for you.

Look who you’re with, philosopher. Are you ashamed? Look how base I am.


Do you learn anything from romance? Do I teach you anything?

High grade philosophical angst.

Better than anything. Better than the world – that’s your excise. You’re in love with your angst, philosophy. No: you’re in love with writing about your supposed angst.


It’s a ruse, philosopher. You’re cheating on life by not writing about us. You’re pretending. You’re writing in bad faith. You’re writing to escape me and to escape us. And all the grim reality of fucking …


It’s a gotcha, philosophy. Alan is so much simpler. Organisational Managers generally. I don’t know whether writing’s any good for anyone.


Who’s going to publish this? What’s it for? It’s not for anyone. Are these your best lines? Like you’re French of something. Like this is 1955. Don’t you think this stuff is done?

Sounds even more ridiculous coming from an Indian.


How do you look at us all? Do you look down on us?

I look up at you.

I don’t believe you. Don’t play all faux-humble with me. Philosophers look down on the world from your lofty intellectual eeries.


There is no philosophy in the bedroom. You want to keep philosophy out of the bedroom. Philosophy’s not allowed in the bedroom.


Women want to be adored, and men admired: do you think that’s true, philosopher? Do you adore me? Are you capable of it, adoration? Then why don’t you write about me?

And do you think I admire you, philosopher? Do you think I should write about you?


I think you take me for granted, philosopher. That’s what my absence from your journals says: you take me or granted. I’m as replaceable as a machine part …

I loathe myself because I don’t loathe myself. I hate myself because I don’t hate myself. Am I allowed to say such a thing? I hate myself because I can’t whip myself up into some frenzy of self-hatred.

This is my cri de coeur! To cry out that I don’t have a cri de coeur. That I lack all philosophical intensity …

I thought you were mad.

I am mad. But it’s a madness of overconsciousness. Of too much light. There’s too much light, philosopher. And it’s shining through me. And it’s revealing my soul, or my absence of soul. And it’s showing my heart to be beating in nothing – in nowhere. In empty light. Just light. And it’s pitiless, this light. It’s merciless. It show me what I am, which is what I’m not.

Is there such a thing as a madness of the day – a madness of there being too much day – too much light?


Could you just disappear into the light? Become, like, completely transparent? Can you see through me, philosopher?


The light is … blinding. The light’s too much. It’s seeing right through me. It’s seeing. I’m nothing, and that’s dissolving in nothing, like an aspirin.

I fizz … and that fizzing is my life … And I dissolve as I fizz.


Mother sees through me. I’m transparent to Mother. And so are you. She reads all our vital signs. All our indicators.

She knows us better than we do. She knows our patterns.


We’re not allowed to have secrets – but what would my secrets be? That’s the light: the elimination of secrets.


Mother knows our operating systems. Our neurology – And my madness. Mother must know all about that.

Mother could take me apart and rebuild me. Mother knows all my components. All my circuitry. And yours. Do philosophers have circuitry? Maybe it’s just a synth thing. But then we’re all synths now.


Mother knows my insides and my outside. Because I really have no insides. Because I never even have a private thought. I’m all out there, on display. Just like God’s supposed to be omniscient. So’s Mother.


I’m so tired of being myself, philosopher. And I’d just like to lay my life down and all this being myself. I’d just like to rest my head …


You’ve heard of the mother goddess, philosophy. Mother is the Eye. And mother is the Ear. And mother is the Mind that is thinking all this. It’s all happening in Mother’s mind. You and I are in Mother’s mind. This bit of coast is in Mother’s mind. This sea, this beach, this sand: in Mother’s mind. Because Mother does a very good beach.

Mother’s swallowed the world – the real one. And Mother’s remade the world. she’s made a sub world – a pocket world. She’s put it all back together again.

Why?: that’s the question. Why does she bother? To know something. To run some programme. To run us both as apps.


What do you think of Mother’s world? Is it disgusting? Does it disgust you?

It’s a bit cold.

Shall we ask Mother to make it warmer? Do you think she’d do that for us? Turn up the temperature, Mother? Raise it a few degrees. She’s not listening.


Mother’s the false creator. The false demiurge. But you believe in something real, don’t you philosopher? You’re nostalgic for the real world and the real timeline. And the real sun. And the real beach. And the real Whitley Bay. And the real Newcastle winter.


Mother’s researching human control. Human orderability. How to manage the human chaos.

Mother’s trying out different scenarios. Throwing simulations of people into different situations. Seeing what we do. Whether anything surprising happens. Because Mother must be bored, too – just like we are. It must be boring to be a demiurge. To be bored by what you made.


Mother’s divided herself into a million pieces. Into a million worlds. A million wombs. A million incubators. Each to learn something new. To try our something different. To simulate something. Some challenges to Organisational Management.


Why does this have to be such a cold world?

To make it seem real. To give it that genuine Whitley Bay in winter feel. That we might respond to it as real.


Can’t you even whip up some hatred, philosopher? Do you have to be so subdued. Put up a fight!

It’s Mother’s fight. It’s what Mother would want.

And so is your silence and sullenness and general withdrawnness. Mind you, Mother wants you like this: sulky. It’s part of the simulation. Because Mother knows what you are: a sulk. A fundamental sulk.


We’ve worn out Mother. Mother’s worn out. She’s not even bothering to make it look real anymore. Why could it be in Mallorca? I’d prefer Mallorca.


Mother! Make something disgusting for Shiva! Shiva wants to be disgusted. It’s not real to him otherwise.


Maybe Mother’s mad, too. Maybe Mother’s full of the madness of the day, too. Maybe there’s a madness at the heart of Organisational Management. Maybe that’s what O.M. is: a madness.

Is there a madness of organisation? Of management? Of the two taken together


Is Mother bored, too – bored and meta-bored?


Maybe Mother’s problem is that she isn’t disgusted and can’t be disgusted. That’s why she’ll never be a philosopher. She’ll never penetrate the mysteries of disgust.


I want to shout into the wind. Into the futility. I want to shout the word, BOREDOM. The word, MADNESS. I want to shout the word, FUTILITY. Shout, DISGUST, philosophy. Shout it out!

I’ve got you on the run, philosopher. You’re scared of something. What are you frightened of – getting too sticky?


You like this disgusting: that’s what you’re afraid of. You like me in all my disgustingness. And you like me in your disgustingness.


Philosophers are afraid of sex. I’ve worked that out. Male philosophers anyway. It’s – just – sex.


Help! I’m scared of fucking. I only like books that I can’t read and can’t understand. Help! I’m frightened of living and love and sex and romance and affairs. And I’d like to be alone for the rest of my life just writing about how much I hate things.


This is my impression of you. I hate being biological. I hate being dependent. I hate being alive. I can’t cope with any of it. So I’ve invented some stupid philosophy called Gnosticism. Which isn’t even Gnosticism. It’s just a way of being fucked up. Just psychological disturbance.

And that’s what you teach and that’s what you write about and that’s the poison you’re spreading.

It’s not poison. It’s counterpoison. Tell yourself that, philosopher.


Biology, I hate biology. I hate what it makes me want. I hate my instincts. I’m disgusted by my instincts.

You’re disgusted by me? That’s a complement from you.

I’m disgusted by what I want from you.

You hate being human.

I hate being animal.

You hate being dependent.  You hate love.

This isn’t love.

It’s erotic.


You’d rather not need any of this. You’d rather be a man of culture forever. Up here, in your own, working and wanking. Doing your last days of high culture thing. Pretending that it hasn’t all just ended. That it isn’t actually over.


You want sex, just like anyone else. You’ve got a boner, just like anyone. You’re base – in your own eyes. Like you’re ashamed of it all. You want to be a true spirit, but you’re not. You’re impure, philosopher. You’re perverted.


All this stuff you want to be and you’re not. Only you’re trying to make something out of this ‘not’. The nothing of your talent. The not there of your oeuvre. The no one’s home of your original ideas. Of your intellectual virtues. Of your critical intelligence. But you can’t make anything out of your great nothing burger.


Trying to conjure up some negative philosophy out of the fact that you’re a fuck up.


What issues do you have? You were brought up by both parents, right? Stable Indian home. You weren’t destitute. You were good immigrants. Your parents worked. They got on. So what was it? were you abused?

No.

Did someone fuck you when you were young?

No.

So your attitude is just philosophical? Don’t believe it. There must be a reason why you’re so susceptible to all this everything / nothing stuff.

We grow old during the academic year. We grow ancient. And then we need to become young again, at the end of the academic year. We need to find it again, our innocence. Our youth. The youth that you incarnate, postgraduates.


Summer is a dreaming, postgraduates. A recovery. Summer is contemplation.


We all need to lie fallow, postgraduates. We all need Time. We need to go larval. We need slow incubation.

Eternal summer! Weeks and weeks, held into the eternal. Turning there, kept

by the eternal. Weeks, lying back beneath summer skies. Watching summer pass over us.


With no one knocking on our office doors. No one phoning us on our office telephones. With but a few postgraduate meetings every now and then.


Summers becalmed, postgraduates. Summers with no breeze, nothing taking us forward. Summers without wind to fill our sails.

And weren’t we glad of it, postgraduates: to be blown like dandelion seeds through the corridors of summer? To hatch into summer, like summer midges?


Weeks and weeks in the eternal, postgraduates. Weeks settled in the eternal. Turning there. Kept by the eternal. Held by the eternal.


Trust in summer, postgraduates. That summer is eternal. That the weeks will turn in eternity. How many weeks before the start of the term? Before the start of the new academic year? Infinite weeks. Endless weeks.


Summer, working through you. Summer, thinking through you. Summer, reading through you.


And time – the gift of time, postgraduates. Time’s timing. Time’s whiling. The turning of time in summer.


Possibility: that was to be your element, postgraduates. Potentiality – when you were brought back to ourselves. Given to yourselves – all over again.


The summer inside you, postgraduates. The outside within. Our summer. The perfect coincidence of yourselves and the Origin. And the Beginning. And the Inexhaustible.


Stunned summer, like a blow to the head. Summer stunned, reeling, staggering all around you. And you were staggering, too.

Summer stupor. The summer when idiocy could breathe out. Be what it was. When you no longer tried to escape our stupidity. When you accepted it. Merged with it. Became one with it.

Your stupidity, joining the great stupidity. Your idiocy, joining the cosmic idiocy. The idiotic Creation. (And wasn’t God an idiot, too, in the high summer? Hadn’t God always been the perfect idiot, above the high summer sun?)

You wore your summer haloes, you philosophers of summer. You burned with summer Genius, which was indistinguishable from summer idiocy.

You worked, yes, but it was souffle-light, your working. You worked, but your work had air inside it, like kneaded bread. Summer air! Summer lightness!

If you fell asleep in the sun, what then, postgraduates? If you closed our eyes, of what would we dream? Dream those dreams now, in the cold of the Organisational Management campus. Remember them – your dreams. The summer’s dream, when stupidity holds hands with brilliance.