Author: Lars Iyer

Who are you going to be with when you die? Do you think you’ll be with anyone? Will you have settled down? Have had children, maybe? I can imagine it: an older child. Attentive. Serious. Mopping your brow. Looking after you. Holding you and singing songs from your childhood, or whatever. Wouldn’t that be something?

And what about you? Are you going to outlive your husband?

Definitely. He’s twenty years old than me, you know … Unless I’m the sort who dies young – I can’t tell. Who dies of turbo-cancer aged forty-six, like one of my aunts did. And these things pass down the family line … They are inherited … And as for you: you’ll die age eighty-six, full of years, a distinguished intellectual career behind you. Having written many celebrated books, all lined up on your shelf. And translations. A whole oeuvre …

What are your sexual fantasies? What’s in your head, philosopher? I want to know what’s in your head.

Do you like the whole college girl thing? Backpack on and all that. Pert little pony tail?

 

If you paid for sex, what would you pay for? What services? What would excite you?

Why do you want to know?

 

I’ll bet you want an apocalyptic fuck. A fuck at the end of time.

The last fuck in the universe. The last fuck that anyone will have, ever again.

I’ll bet you’re into apocalyptic sex play. Do you have apocalyptic sex toys? Actually, that’s a business idea: apocalyptic sex toys.

 

What is apocalyptic fucking actually like? I wonder. Pretty urgent, I suppose. Is it any different from messianic fucking?

I think they’re part of the same thing.

Does the messiah actually fuck?

It’s not about the messiah, it’s about the messianic. Different thing.

Does the messianic actually fuck?

 

I’m going to warm up your cold philosophical heart. With some Organisational Management loving.

 

What’s an Organisational Management turn on? The opposite of a philosophy turn on.

Is the opposite of Organisational Management a turn on?

What’s the opposite of Organisational Management?

Philosophy, of course. Is philosophy a turn on?

Who do you want me to be for you?

An Organisational Manager for the end of time. An apocalyptic Organisational Manager. Who’s, like, organising the apocalypse.

You can’t organise the apocalypse.

The Organisational Manager of chaos. Of disorder. The Organisational Manager of the end of times. The last Organisational Manager.

 

Let’s have some apocalyptic thrills. Let’s, like, enact apocalypse in the bedroom.

 

Apocalyptic roleplay! Do you have any apocalyptic outfits? Apocalyptic handcuffs?

Aren’t we too old for all this … romance. This supposed romance. Aren’t we too jaded for this? Aren’t we too tired for this? Haven’t we heard it all before, many times? How many times? Haven’t we seen scenes like this played out on soap operas and crappy movies? Hasn’t all this happened before? To people just … like … us?

 

What if I did leave my husband? What kind of life would I have? Who would we be together? What kind of couple would we make? How long before we’d just be like everyone else? How long would it be before we couldn’t bear one another?

What do you do in Mallorca?

I enjoy the sun. I read … thrillers. Or detective books. Imagine that, philosopher. Sit by the pool – we actually have a pool. Imagine that! A house with a pool. I have a friend over there. A gay friend. My gay best Mallorca friend. I think he’d like you. My husband doesn’t really get him at all, though he’d like to. My husband’s not really metrosexual, like you. He’s more traditionally male. He’s a specimen of northern manhood.

I’m not afraid of death, philosopher. There are worse things than death. Should I be afraid … for my immortal soul? For karmic retribution?

 

Should I try and be good. Should I, philosopher? Do I convince you, philosopher? What kind of person am I, philosopher?

 

I should be judged. Someone should sit in judgement upon me. I don’t deserve … this. That’s what I‘m sure of.

 

Come on, we know what goodness is. We know the good people are. We know how we’re supposed to live.

 

There’s some other way to live, isn’t there? We don’t have to be who we are. We don’t have to be this. There’s another life. Another way of living our lives. Isn’t there?

It’s like being … spacewalkers. Like astronauts on a spacewalk. It’s like total zero-G.

Do you think it’s possible to fall out of life, philosopher? Is that what’s happening to me? To us?

 

Where is this going? I’ll tell you: nowhere. But I like nowhere. I like wherever it is we are, or are not. What’s happening?  I’ll tell you: nothing. I like nothing. I like whatever it is happening, or isn’t happening.

 

We’re between times. Between seasons. It’s between day and night.

 

It’s like we’ve been dealt some vast, soft blow. A kind blow. Like we’ve been knocked out, but gently. Like we’ve been concussed. Have we been concussed, philosopher?

It’s like we’ve been crushed, but gently. It’s like we’ve been run over, but softly.

 

It’s like we’re dazed. Like we’ve been the victim of some terrible accident. Yet we’re unscathed. Yet we’re fine. Yet nothing happened.

It’s like we’re the victims of some hit and run. Like we’ve been destroyed, or half destroyed, or nearly destroyed. But we’re okay. We’re just fine.

You want something new.

I do want something new. And you’re one of the new things I want, philosopher. A walking, talking sex toy.

Well, I could have picked a better sex toy, couldn’t I? I could have picked someone who could get it up.

There are various positions I like, philosophy. That you’re incapable of. Maybe I’d like to fuck in the shower, did you ever think of that? See, I can say the word fuck. There aren’t many women who can say the word, fuck. But they’re the same kind of women who are sexually demanding.

Oh come now, I didn’t mean to humiliate you. I didn’t mean to insult your virility. Or maybe I did …

 

See, I’m picking at you, aren’t I? She’s bitch – that’s what you’re thinking. She’s fucking toxic. And you’d be right. I’m thinking it, too. Maybe you aren’t enough of an adversary for me. Maybe you don’t stand up to me enough. What do you think?

 

You don’t want to play my abasement games. Maybe they’re what turn me on: my abasement games. My cruelty – sexual cruelty. My cruelty about sex. Except I don’t think they do turn me on. I think I play them to stop myself being turned on. To push away my lover. Am I pushing you away, philosopher?

Do you think it’s chance that’s thrown us together like this, philosopher? Has fate had a hand in it?

 

What are we doing with our lives? Are we being reckless with our lives? Are we spoiling them, our lives? But we’re free to do that, aren’t we? We’re free to do exactly as we please. That’s the thing. That’s the problem with too much freedom. I mean, what should we be doing with it? Something meaningful, I’m sure. But what is meaningful? Who can tell?

 

This deception can’t be good for anyone, can it? It can’t be good for us. Do you ever wonder what it’s doing to us? We’re demons. Or I am. I’ve become demonic.

And I don’t mind, that’s the thing. Which makes me doubly demonic.

Did I used to have a conscience? Maybe. But then I got so booored … All kinds of things are justified when you’re bored, aren’t they? And marriage gets very very dull.

 

Corruption comes with age. Were we better when you were young, philosopher? More idealistic, maybe? More delightfully open to the world? Were we full of joy, back then, when we were eighteen. When we hadn’t yet worked things out?

Because now we’re old … and cynical … and corrupted. Now we know the wheels that turn in the night. Now we know the engines that grind and grind.

 

I’ve got it all. A very nice roof over my head. And a house in Mallorca. To think: I have a house in Mallorca. How did that happen?

I’ve done well, haven’t I? I’ve made good.

 

The agony of no agony. The agony of banality. Is there such a thing? The agony of my husband snoozing after dinner. The agony of conversations about work. Which aren’t even an agony.

 

The everyday, philosopher. I can’t bear the everyday. I can’t bear the banality. Spare me from the banality.

Am I like some bored housewife? A bored housewife, who happens to work? Whose life isn’t fulfilling enough? Who wants a little extra thrill? And you’re my thrill …

 

Of all the crimes I could commit, it isn’t the most serious, is it?

I’m pleasing myself. And perhaps I’m pleasing you.

 

After all, this doesn’t hurt anyone. Does it?

How about us? Does it hurt us? Is it corrupting us? We’ve become liars. Dissemblers. We won’t tell the whole truth. Well, I say ‘we’, but I mean ‘I’.

Because you’re okay. You’re just the occasion of adultery. But then you have meetings with him, don’t you, my husband. My provider. You’re lying to him, implicitly …

 

God … what webs we weave. How deeply we’re compromised. Was life ever simple? Should it be that: just simple? Just easy? Just streamlined? Just heading in the right direction?

 

A soap opera staple. A TV drama staple. All the ingredients for a melodrama. And a crappy melodrama, at that. It’s bound to come out. It’s bound to lead to some … argy-bargy.

Tuesday drinking.

Pissed for nothing. What are we supposed to do with our pissedness? What’s it for? I mean, being pissed should be about something. It should be part of some Occasion. But there is no Occasion. There’s just us, drinking without meaning.

Drinking because of the lack of meaning.

 

Tuesday drinking.

Pissed and then what? Pissed, and then, just another day. Where’s it going to lead? What’s its for?

Pissed on a weeknight. Pissed for no particular occasion. In honour of nothing in particular.

Pointlessly pissed. Pointlessly up for something, when nothing’s actually happening.

 

Tuesday drinking.

What kind of day is Tuesday, to be pissed? Friday’s one thing. Saturday’s understandable. But weekday drinking is for losers …

 

Tuesday drinking.

We’re out of step with the world. We’re not part of anything. No one else is even pissed.

 

Tuesday drinking.

The great fucking futility. The great fucking pissed-for-nothing.

 

Tuesday drinking.

There’s a protocol to drinking. There’s a time for drinking. And that time’s the weekend. Not the fucking midweek.

What day do you call this? What time do you call this? What’s this supposed to be about?

 

Tuesday drinking.

Mark the Great Futility by drinking to the Great Futility. Mark the Great Nothing by toasting the Great Nothing.

 

Tuesday drinking.

Not even waiting for the weekend. Not even saving yourself for the weekend.

This is so … directionless. This is so pointless. I mean, it’s not as if you can write philosophy when you’re pissed.

 

Tuesday drinking.

The way I see it: this could be the night that changes everything. This could be the great Swerve. This could be another direction of the world. Everything could change tonight, this weekday night.

This is a night that can get lost. This is the night where we could be Found. Where we could Make Our Way. To where? From where? Where’s it going to go?

 

Tuesday drinking.

The room, spinning round and round. Drunk because it’s Tuesday. Drunk because it’s irredeemably Tuesday. Drunk because this night isn’t the Greater Night. Because this sky isn’t the Greater Sky. Drunk because this is Tuesday night. And nothing other than Tuesday night.

 

Tuesday drinking.

Drunk because the world hasn’t ended yet. Because it hasn’t had the decency to come to an end. To finish itself the fuck off.

 

Tuesday drinking.

Because it’s too early in the week. Because there’s so much of the week to go.

We’ll get pissed next Tuesday too, probably. Just as we were pissed last Tuesday.

 

Tuesday drinking.

We drink because of Time, because there’s too much Time. We drinking because of the Night, because there’s too much Night. We drink because we’re dead, having never lived.

 

Tuesday drinking.

We drink because we’re not yet born. Because we’ve not yet arrived.

Because we’re the most obscure people in the world. Because we’re the most Insignificant people. Because we’re the no ones. And the lost ones. And the abandoned ones.

 

Tuesday drinking.

We drink because no one will remember us. No one will even forget us. Because there’s nothing to remember, not really. And what is there to forget?

 

Tuesday drinking.

Mourning drinking. Grief drinking. Drinking for Nothing.

Cicero’s notebooks:

Transcendentally discontent. Transcendental hatred – for this life. For the conditions of this life.

Transcendental world-disgust. Transcendental life-disgust. Transcendental horror at it all. The beginning of philosophy.

 

Philosophy’s gone wrong inside you. Philosophy’s festering.

 

There’s a … horrific vision. And that’s important. Creation stripped to the bone. Naked facticity.

 

God isn’t revealed through the world. God and the world: completely antagonistic.

 

End times? Come and gone. This is the afterlife. Or the afterdeath.

 

Nihilize the world. The whole creaturely realm. There’s a use for disenchantment.

 

What creatureliness shows us. The worst the world, the greater the chance for redemption.

Everything has to sink to the lowest level. The world has to be shown as being perfect guilty, perfectly culpable (Benjamin). As being worthy only of being destroyed (Scholem). The redemption needs dread and ruin.

 

‘When you have sunk to the lowest level, at that time I will redeem you’.

 

Natural beauty: the problem. Do not be seduced by the sea or the sunset. Unless we can see natural beauty as sheer horror. See the world as a meaningless void. The void of God that’s what we have to know. The world as the void of God.

 

The whole of creation has to be allowed to fall into the night. The deepest nihilistic fall of the world: that’s what we need to know.

 

God’s withdrawal from the world has to be complete. And that will be revelation: a new form of revelation.

 

A new faith … which is made from doubt and disbelief. Which creates itself out of nothing – the divine nothing. God has to spring anew from his nothingness.

 

We have to reach perfect hopelessness. De profundis.

 

Complete nihilism. Perfect it.

 

The perfect nihilist can see that the world lacks nothing. That it’s self-enclosed. Integral. Full as it is. But what it lacks is nothing. What it lacks … is what it’s not.