Author: Lars Iyer

Our lectures.

We have terrible things to impart. To warn them of. Evil things. Forces.

 

Our lectures.

Passing on our delirious death fantasies to the students. Our general life-denial.

 

Our lectures.

Our horror. All-encompassing. Our sense of absolute doom. Our sense that the sky, at any moment, could be full of flames. Hasn’t the sky always been on fire for us? Hasn’t world destruction always been in the offing? Hasn’t it always been the day before the Day of Judgement?

 

Our lectures.

And all of it with a chiliastic edge. With an apocalyptic edge.

 

Our lectures.

Our resentments. Our fantasies. Our eyes on the burning horizon.

 

Our lectures.

Our madness. The peculiars we turned out to be. Our madness, spoken. Resounding.

Your suicidal fantasies. Why do we have to be part of them? Why does it all have to be public? Why do you have to talk about them so much? Why do you go on and on …

Because I’m tired of life. And I’m tired of being tired. Don’t you think we’ve lived too long, all of us? Don’t you think we should find the perfect moment to … you know … And what if that moment’s now … or now …

 

Do you think suicide is truth, or something?

I think suicide is error. I think suicide’s a great going wrong. But I like error. And I want to go wrong. And no one will understand why, not really. And maybe I won’t understand why. It’s … it’s a turn into unreason. Into not thinking things through. It’s a desire for like, unknowledge. Non-fucking-knowing.

 

Are you going to do it tonight – of all nights? Is this going to be it? How dramatic! Tomorrow, you’ll be but a memory for us. Imagine that. You’ll exist in the past. We’ll talk about you in the past tense. What sort of funeral do you want? How should we remember you?

 

How would you do it, anyway? Actually, I don’t even want to know. I’m sure I’ve asked that before. I don’t want to feed the fucking frenzy.

Are we anarcho-communists or anarcho-capitalists?

Does it matter? The point is that we’re anarcho-somethings.

Anarcho-wankers. Anarcho-tossers.

To maintain the void in the world. To hold onto it – live it – inhabit it.

 

A purifying voiding of self. It’s what ascetics understand. An extinction. A death in life.

 

The evacuation of the world. A kind of deliverance. A being-claimed.

 

We want to be filled with the light of the void.

We never learn from our disappointments. We never course-correct. We never do things better.

 

What will our lives add up to? What’s their greater significance? What are we for? What do we do? Who’s going to remember us? What will we amount to? Where are we going? What’s this all for? Who will love us? Remember us? Mourn us?

We’re tolerated. We’re allowed to teach. Which means no one expects anything dangerous from us.

 

We’re allowed to teach this, because it does not matter. We’re permitted this, because it is of no consequence. They’re letting us get away with it because we’re not getting away with anything.

 

The fact that we haven’t been censored means something. We must be part of their plan. They must want us to teach the young. Think about that. We’re part of it. We’re controlled opposition. Barely even opposition.

 

There must be a reason why we’re allowed to teach this stuff. Why it’s allowed to be taught. It’s quite deliberate. It’s why we were brought here. Why we were given these jobs.

In truth, they must have groomed us. Just as they’re making us groom our students. We were formed, just as we’re doing the forming.

We’re contemplators. We’re starers-into-air. We’re puddles under the sky. We’re moon-starers. Beach-walkers. We’re daydreamers. Dawdlers. We’re sippers of drinks. Drummers of fingers. We’re doodlers.

We’re not-listeners. We’ve no chat. We’re no-small-talkers. We’ve nothing to say. We’re zero-contributors.

 

We’re not meticulous. We’re not diligent. We don’t care, greatly. We’ve switched off, tuned out. We’re not here, really. We’re elsewhere. We’re daydreaming. Woolgathering.

We’re unalert. We’re disengaged. We’re not following. We’re thinkers about other things. We’re non-concentrators. Our minds are elsewhere. We’re not tuned in. We’re not followers of the action. We’re non-smilers-at-jokes.

 

We want broader horizons. We want skies, vistas. We’re sublime-ists. We’re vista-mongers. We’re for the illimitable. We’re for the unlimited. We need space on all sides. We need the sea at our feet.

 

We’ve got the dull meeting blues …

 

We’re must-we-be-heres? We’re is-this-really-necessary?

 

We’re screamers inside. We’re inside howlers. We’re inside bellowers. We want out and out and out …

We’re this-is-intolerable. We’re utterly impatient. We’re bored of this.

This is what our affair’s all about. The sky. The open sky. And time. And sharing time. And sharing the sky. And sharing this … mood … whatever it is. This mood, or whatever. This whatever …

Maybe that’s the word for it: whatever. Maybe that’s the word for everything: Whatever. Or maybe whatsoever. Or maybe whatso-fucking-ever.

 

Dare me. Dare me to do something crazy. Dare me to tear up my life. Dare me to destroy my life. Dare me to laugh at my life – laugh until I die. Dare me, philosopher. Dare me to start what I can’t finish. Dare me to go mad. Just to let myself go mad. Just to open my head. Take off the top of my head. Dare me, philosopher.

 

I could talk forever. But really, it’s talking, not me. It’s spinning out. This is the infinite’s work. This is the sky’s work. I’m speaking the words of the sky. I’m speaking as the sky would speak. This is the forever speech. This is where I touch forever. This is where I reach it, and it reaches me. And I don’t want anything else to happen but this. It’s mad, it’s my madness, but it isn’t even mine.

 

This is the last time I’ll come. I don’t need anymore.

The memory of it all will grow in me. Will grow right through me. It will saturate me. I will be nothing other than what has happened here.

I’ll seem … distracted. I’ll seem … turned away. Impersonal. And when asked, what will I say? I was remembering. I was remembering what it was to be forgotten. To be totally obscure.

And for this to be madness, my madness, my legitimate madness.

 

This is our intimacy. This is where we both disappear. This is where we are lost, in the afternoon. Together by not being together. Together, with the whole afternoon between us.

This is where we’re lost together. This is where we’ll find ourselves lost, and together.

 

This is the speaking. This is speech. This is the way of letting it resound. Letting it echo through what I say.

I’d call this God. I’d say God was speaking. If I believed in God.

We’re just two poles of a relation, philosopher. But the relation’s the thing. The in-between. What happens or doesn’t happen between us.

 

Sometimes you have to get lost, philosopher. To get vague. We’re vague, aren’t we, philosopher? We’re lost in vagueness.

 

See, I’ve entered the zone. I’ve entered some kind of zone. I’m in the zone speaking out of the zone, don’t you think?

I’m saying something profound. Only it’s not my profundity. Actually, I’m not sure it’s even profound. I’m not sure it’s even deep. Profound superficiality. The superficial profound. That’s the paradox. Saying nothing, saying everything: both at the same time.

 

Nothing ever happens, does it? Nothing ever happens. No – it’s that something undoes what happens. Makes it unimportant. Erodes its memory. There’s an unhappening that happens, too. There’s an unevent that turns things from what they’re supposed to be.

 

Fuck, fuck, FUCK! It’s like being muffled. Like no one can hear me. You can hear me, can’t you? You know what I’m saying, even if I don’t. God … I want to get OUT! I can’t get OUT!

It’s like I’m trapped up here. Trapped with you.

 

And I want to shout it out. Scream it up. To the skylight. To the eye of God. To the eye of non-God. The eye of the God who is not there. The eye of no one. No one’s eye. And it’s not even an eye.

 

Who sees us? Who watches us? Who watches over us? Who cares for us? Who cares at all?

 

If I ask any more questions, then … What? If question falls into question falls into question, what? If questioning just becomes, like, infinite, what? If I question everything, and question questioning and things just get deeper, then what?

 

Life is long, isn’t it, philosopher? Life’s terribly long.

This is a life sentence. We’re sentenced to all these endless days. All these weeks and months and years.

Where is it all going, philosopher? Who’s going to remember these things? This … oblivion. That we share. This passion of forgetting? Who’s going to mark it?

 

It’s like I’m slurring, but in speech. Like I’m really stoned – or what I imagine being stoned is like.

Dissociation: is that it? I’m looking in on this from faraway. From a great distance. I’m here and not here. The distance … between me and me, let along between me and you. It's like some weird trip. What’s doing this to us? What’s happening or not happening or whatever? What’s anything?

Our affair is very wordy, isn’t it, philosopher? And it’s me talking, mostly.

Our affair is thoroughly literary … It’s characterised by a standing apart from it all. From life. We’re not part of anything, are we?

What should we be part of?

Life – just life.

Is that easy? I don’t think it’s easy.

Part of life … I don’t think that’s an option for us. As humans, I mean. When we fuck …

When we fuck, what?

Is that life? It’s not life. I don’t know what that word means. Life: I say it to myself, and I know less and less. What is life? Like we know how to live. Like we know what to do.

That’s the problem: we don’t know what to do. So we’re here, obeying our … instincts. Did instincts lead us here? Are instincts to blame? God, what are we? What animals. Animals plus what? Rationality? Language? God ….

God, the human condition’s so disappointing, isn’t it?

I’m tired of living down here. In the lowlands. In the shameful lowlands. And you’re down here with me.

Do I really feel shame? Am I capable of shame? But I don’t really feel it. Or I feel other things, too. Mitigating things.

Which means I’m always distant from it, shame. Shame should saturate you, if it is to be real shame. It should fill you completely. You shouldn’t be able to … discuss it. To … ironize about it. Shame should prompt some action. It’s supposed to make us behave a certain way. And does it?

 

Desperate – are we desperate, philosopher? I think I might be desperate … in some recess … some buried part of me. The best part, maybe. My soul, maybe.

A spiritual desperation. A desire to be helped. From on high. By the breaking in of some … transcendence. Does that happen? Could that happen?

A miracle – that’s what I want.

 

An abomination … that’s the word I want to use. It sounds very horrifying, doesn’t it? Am I an abomination? Are you? Is this … whole … situation … abominable? Maybe, philosopher.

 

Maybe all this self-disgust will lead somewhere. If it’s really self-disgust. If it isn’t just talk about self-disgust.

 

A tissue of lies. But I don’t mind lying. Or I don’t mind enough.

 

It’s like I live everything at an immense distance. Like I don’t really coincide with anything. I’m not here, that’s what I think. I’m not present. Where am I? Lost in vagueness. In some … impersonal daydreaming.

It’s not even my daydream, or that’s how it feels. I’m not mine. I’m not here. I’m away somewhere. And I don’t think I’d even like to be real. This isn’t my world. I didn’t ask to be born into it. That’s what adolescents always say. Do they still say those things?

 

Emotional devastation – am I capable of that? Is anyone capable of it anymore?

What if my husband found out about all this? Would he be emotionally devastated? Is he capable of that? I don’t believe it. I think he’d be … miffed. Irritated, maybe. But not devastated. I might be wrong. Maybe I should tell him, just to see the effect …

Am I a sadist do you think? Or is it a masochist? Which one means what? Or am I both? I don’t think I’m deliberately cruel. None of this is deliberate. Unless it’s unconsciously deliberate.

 

The torture is that we’re not tortured. But whose torture is that? Our real guilt is that we don’t feel guilt. What’s sad is that we don’t feel sad. We don’t feel anything. We’re muted. It’s like everything been turned down for us. We don’t have an interior … life …