Author: Lars Iyer

How’s the world-disgust today? Where are your disgust levels? What’s it like to hate the world quite …. so … much?  

 

You can’t be disgusted with the whole world. The whole world and all its possibilities and everything it has to offer and all the people in it and … ev-ery-thing …

I can.

Have you really tried everything? Sampled all that the world has to offer? Run through it all? Done it all? And at your age!?

I’ve tried enough. I’ve had enough.

What’s the common denominator in all your experiences? You: you’re the common denominator. You always bring yourself with you. Maybe you are the problem, not the world. Don’t blame the world, philosopher …

 

And how about me? Are you disgusted with me?

I’m not disgusted by you.

You don’t find me tiresome? And horrible? And dead?

I think you’re the least tiresome and horrible and dead thing for me in the whole world.

I’ll take it, philosopher. It’s a complement. Is that your version of falling in love: feeling undisgusted? No, don’t answer. Am I changing the world for you? Are you falling in love with the world, too? Don’t answer that, either.

I’m the sort of person they warn you about. Woo – a dangerous organisational manager! An organisational manager gone rogue!

Does that happen? Is there a point you get to when you’re so organised and so managed that you just … flip over to the opposite?

Maybe.

Is that an occupational hazard?

 

I think there must be mad organisational managers. Sent-mad organisational managers. Maybe there are some here, at this party. Mad organisational managers, mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everythin at the same time. Who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, who but rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light …

Let’s flee together. Let’s get out of here. Where would we go? Anywhere … but here. Let’s elope, philosopher.

Let’s show them what interdisciplinarity means. Let’s bring the disciplines together. Let’s have a child that is the fruit of interdisciplinarity. Brought up philosophically and organisational managerially …

A child born of opposites! Of a beautiful tension! Of a harmony, to which we contribute as we bring it up. We’ll meet in the middle. In the sweet spot between organisational management and philosophy. In a perfect equipoise …

I’m calm when I’m here. It’s like being at the heart of something. At the heart of the world. Like the world turns around us. Like we’re at the heart of the universe …

Do you mind if I talk? You look like you want to go to sleep. I don’t. I’m awake.

I can tell.

Do I talk too much?

 

What would your last words be? What would you say? How would you sum it all up, philosopher? Isn’t that your business: summing things up?

 

Last words … I’d have no last words. I’d just carry on talking forever. I’d have nothing to say, but I’d just keep on talking forever.

I always have bad dreams. I’m uneasy in my soul. I wake up in the night.

 

The other night, I went into the bathroom and found myself just crying and crying. I was, shuddering. And trembling. Quite grotesque … Oh don’t feel sorry for me. I‘m not asking for you to feel sorry.

The troubles of a married woman, of an adulterer and cuckolder are as nothing, no doubt, to all the real suffering out there. And perhaps it’s not even suffering. Perhaps I just enjoy the drama …

The tears of an adulterer are self-inflicted, aren’t they? They’re self-pity. They’re just a desire for drama. No one could feel sorry for me. Not even you. You don’t feel sorry for me, do you?

 

I’d like to sleep the sleep of the just. Do you sleep easily? I can never sleep. There’s stuff on my mind. Or maybe it’s just on my mind because I can’t sleep. What comes first: the insomnia, or the thoughts you have when you can’t sleep?

Maybe I’d like things to be a bit more physical. Maybe I’d like to get fucked.

 

My husband used to fuck me in the shower. In our early years. Sing it to the tune of that Neil Diamond song: You don’t fuck me in the shower … anymore.

 

Maybe I’d like to fuck in the shower. I’d like to fuck in the shower, please. Please, philosopher. I’d like to be fucked in the shower.

 

A cock has no brain, right? Your cock has only one purpose: to fuck. Turns out your cock doesn’t actually want to fuck. Do you have a malfunctioning cock? Is it not working right? Or is it me? Am I insufficiently fuckable?

Your cock is going to fuck things up, philosopher.

 

Bodies. Do bodies matter to philosophers? Does my body matter to you, philosopher?

 

I was quiet for a while … did you like that? I didn’t say anything while we were … Fucking … yes, fucking. That word: fucking. I don’t mind that word, fucking.

Can’t you just enjoy it?

You’re supposed to be the philosophical one. You’re supposed to be the one who over-thinks … Do philosophers philosophise about sex? What do they have to say about sex?

What was it like the first time you did it? Share your memories, philosopher.

I’m not saying a thing.

Really? Not a thing? It would help me feel close to you. And you want me to feel close to you, don’t you? Didn’t it go well? Didn’t you perform? Is that the trouble?

Not saying.

I lost it at uni. To some poor fool. Some fumbler. I felt I was dissociating. I felt I was miles away and that it was being done to me. Very common experience.  It wasn’t a trauma, or anything. It didn’t fuck me up.

 

What’s your sexual life been like, philosopher? A lot of masturbation, I imagine. You’re essentially a masturbator: I can see that.

 

How many relationships have you actually had? I want numbers. How many lovers have you had? One night stands? Aren’t you going to tell me?

One night stands are nihilism.

I’ll bet you think relationships are nihilism. Well, aren’t they? They probably get in the way of your work. And I’m sure your work is tremendously important to you.

 

You’re a man like anyone else. You have needs, like anyone else.

I’ll bet you’d see prostitutes, if you could afford them. I’ll bet you’d go for the girlfriend experience if you could pay for it n an academic salary. Well, wouldn’t you? Someone to be nice to you. To say all kinds of nice things. Would that be what you want?

 

Would you pay for this? Wouldn’t that make it simpler? Make it all a transaction? What would you pay for? What would you like done to you? What services? What do you want? I just want to find out what you want. Don’t you like me being sexual?

 

So you’re some sexual fuck up. And you retreated to the study because you’re a sexual fuck up. And you turned to philosophy because you’re a sexual fuck up. That’s what I believe. Or did philosophy make you a sexual fuck up? Hmm.

 

I’m trying to work out how to be with you – don’t you see? I want to know who am I for you. What I mean to you – if I mean anything. I feel I’m making all the effort. Or at least, I’m doing all the talking. Why don’t you talk about something? I’d listen. I’m all up for listening.

 

I’d like to know your entire sexual history.

When it began, who with, and what happened after. Were you ever with a man? It might suit you, being with a man. Would you prefer it? Ever tempted? I’ve been with a woman.

Of course you have. On your bucket list, was it? Losing your gay virginity?

The disciplines are crossing over. Changing places. Are you finding yourself becoming more organisational? More managerial?

 

I’m thinking with your thoughts – is that it? I’m using your thoughts to think.

 

There’s been a transfer. We’ve swapped souls. Do you believe in souls? We are not as we were.

God, philosopher. How can you really be interested in these things? You’re not, are you? How can you be so focused? How can you really, really give a fuck? What’s missing in your life?

Are you really good at this, or something? Do you think you’re going to be?

I mean, is this your life? Is this how you want to live it?

I don’t believe you, philosopher. I don’t believe you believe in any of this. I don’t believe that you believe in your philosophy.

Who actually reads you work? No one. Who will actually read it? Who’s it for? What’s it for? Don’t you ask yourself these questions constantly? And if not, why not?

Do you have moments of self-doubt? And what do you do about those moments of self-doubt?

I know what it is: intellectual stimulation. You need to read clever things and try to write clever things. Because you’re clever. And because the world doesn’t give you enough clever. Enough stimulus.

So you sit up here, in your high room, which you’ve turned into cleverland. And I’m allowed up here, because you have other needs, and not just intellectual ones. Which I’m sure you despise.

You read these things to feel clever and to exercise your cleverness. To take your cleverness for a walk.

 

The clever despise the not-so-clever, I know that, philosopher. Different levels of intelligence shouldn’t mix, should they? I shouldn’t even be up here, I know that. I don’t know my way through arthouse film. I don’t follow the latest developments in … philosophy, or whatever. I don’t have an intellectual life. I don’t study at all, not like you study. I never get lost in books.

 

And you don’t care that it’s leading nowhere. That no one will read you. Or that no one cares.

 

And what I don’t get is why you’ve chosen this philosopher to read, rather than that one. Why you’re exploring this position, rather than that one. Isn’t it all arbitrary? Isn’t it all random? The way up is the way down, or whatever.

 

To have an intellectual position at all. To have a hot take on all the latest matters. To be able to explain the current state of the world. I don’t know any of those things. And I’m not sure how much I care. I don’t have broad horizons, like you philosopher. The organisational management horizon isn’t very broad. We’re not natural speculators, philosopher.

I can see right through your body, philosopher. I have x-ray eyes today. I can see through the ceiling, through the roof. I can see through the sky.

What do you see?

Blackness, that’s all. Originary blackness.

I think I have z-ray eyes, too. Have you ever heard of those? Where you can see into other dimensions. Dimensions where you’re the one in Organisational Management, and I’m the philosopher. Where my husband is the Head of Philosophy, not Organisational Management. And you’re … the head of Organisational Management. And Organisational Management is the most profound subject in the world, thousands of years old, with all the prestige …

Whimsy, philosopher …