Author: Lars Iyer

You want to seize on time itself. To grasp time. To ring-fence even that time that isn’t yours, isn’t organised, isn’t managed.

You’ll never just let time be. You’ll never let time be time.

Even this – even what we’re doing now. It’s just time-off. You’re understanding time negatively. Or recuperatively. As part of what makes you a productive person. Of what makes you work with a smile on your face.

 

Organisation Management wants everything we are. It wants to seize on so-called non-productivity. To seize upon just lying about. Upon time for nothing in particular. Time sacrificed to … nothing. Time burning up to the sky, as an offering to nothing.

You can’t understand idylls. Or breaks. You can’t understand the interval. The interstice. The walk outside. The air.

 

Questioning – what’s the temporality of that? Questioning, when you’re not even asking about anything. When you’re asking about everything. What happens then? Or doesn’t happen? What do you do, when you’re doing philosophy? Is this it? Just lying around? Contemplating?

Can you do philosophy in bed? Can you? Just lie around and … think?

 

You want to seize this. This nothing time. This purposelessness. When I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m doing it.

Idle hours, right? Idling, right? Spinning the wheels, right? Watching the world go by, right?

It’s not even purposeless. It’s not privative. It can’t be defined negatively.

There aren’t words for it, because they’ve been driven out by organisation management and the ancestors of organisation management. By the regularisation of time. By the Gestell of the universe. The great enframing.

 

I’m a nothing-ist. I’m in favour of the nothing of time. When you always have your laptop open. Waiting to catch something. Waiting for an idea. To turn it into some kind of work.

 

You’re afraid of that kind of time, I can tell. You’re afraid of the afternoon. That’s the real story. The philosopher afraid of the time he’d liberate. That he’s sacrificing.

This is my indulgence hour. This is where I can come and be who I like. Be, like, the opposite of an organisational manager.

This is my Organisational Management fantasy of freedom. Which I call, philosophy. Because philosophy is all about questioning. And deeper questioning. And abyssal questioning. And the opening of questioning-abysses. All the way to madness …

 

Madness: that’s what the afternoon is for me. That’s why I can embrace it. Lose myself in it. I can go mad up in here in the safe space of your studio flat. Up here, in your studiolo.

 

This is afternoon madness. Everyone who studies knows it. This is the passion of the afternoon. Where the sky’s too open. Where I think I’ll disappear into the sky.

 

Afternoon silence. It’s so quiet up here. It’s like the silence wants me to speak. Like it’s drawing speech out of me. Like the silence is a question that I have to answer.

And this is how I answer it. With, like, more questions. Until the questioning just devours itself. Falls. A questioning of everything, even of the questioner. This is how I’m lost. How I fall. Deeper and deeper. Until – until there’s nothing of me. Just a great … questioning.

It’s like being torn apart, but very gently. Like there are hooks attached to me from all four corners of the sky. And they’re just pulling me apart. But delicately. Slowly.

 

How do you stand it, philosopher? Do you even feel it? Do you feel it like I do? This sky-madness. This afternoon-madness. That tears you apart very gently …

 

I’ve reached some pure Zen philosophical plane. Like something’s breathing through me. Just breathing in and out, through me. I think it’s the silence. Can silence breathe? Well, it’s breathing through me, philosopher.

 

These are beautiful days, philosopher. I feel that, too. I think these are beautiful times. Even if … even if I forget them one day. Even if they’re very close to being forgotten right now …

 

These are the good times, philosopher. This is like … contemplation. Like God contemplating the world after creating it and saying, It is good. It’s like the eternal sabbath, eternal Sunday that just says everything is good.

 

This is a forever day. This is a forever time. It opens out. Is its own thing. Spreading wide. Is that it?

You’ve brainwashed the head of Organisation Management’s wife. You realise that, don’t you? You’ve made her speak fluent philosophy. Surely that wasn’t your intention.

Turns out the head of Organisation Management’s wife has a gift for philosophy. She gone from nought to a hundred all at once. She’s gone full philosopher.

 

I’m the head of Organisational Management’s mad wife. I’m the wife who can’t be trusted with a full time job. I’m the head of Organisational Management’s philosophical wife. I’m half mad, which means I’m half philosophical …

 

My madness, my special madness, which should be named after me. Which I’m … pioneering. For which I’m flying the flag. I think it’s a very philosophical madness …

 

I’m terribly seductive, which is part of my … problem. My mental disease.

I become delusional and spread my delusion. I become compelling. I cast a spell. And the one I’m who goes mad, too. And my poor husband has to pick … up … the … pieces.

Do you want to go mad, philosopher? Do you have a high tolerance for madness?

Be careful, philosopher. My head’s more open than yours. Something’s wrong with my neuro-circuitry. And you’re only encouraging me. You’re giving me license to be more mad.

 

I’m ahead of all you philosophers, that’s the thing. Because I’m already there where you want to be. I think things you want to think. Easily. Like, it’s second nature to me.

I’m mad and getting madder. It’s incurable. I’m every kind of delusional. I’ll have to be locked up, you realise that, don’t you.

I’ll spend my lifetime locked up after doing some crazy thing. Like murdering my lover. Like stabbing him. I could do something terrible. Are you afraid of me, philosopher? You should be.

I have these thoughts … these feelings that are too big to contain. And I think about God … constantly. As mad people are said to think about God.

You’ll have to help me. I disappearing into this Moment. This Moment is swallowing me up. This interval. This gap. That’s where I’m going to be lost: in this … gap

And you’ll have to help me. Pull me out. Or maybe God will help me. Maybe I’m God’s beloved. Maybe God loves me and knows me. Maybe God’s going to use me for something, maybe. Maybe I’m God’s tool. I’ll be happy to be that.

Don’t think you’re the first one I’ve spoken to like this, philosopher. You’re not the first one I fell for … You’re not the first person to tell me I’m beautiful. That word: beauty. That beautiful word, beauty. It’s almost ass beautiful as the word, God. And of course they mean the same thing.

 

I’ll bet you feel sorry for my husband now. What he has to put with. From his mad wife. From her madness.

Until I do something really terrible and get locked up. Which could happen, philosopher.

Are you afraid? You should be. I’m … unpredictable. I can’t predict myself. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

 

Am I sweeping you up in my delusions? Only a philosopher could understand my delusions. Appreciate them. As you would a fantastic work of art. Or as a pseudo-philosophical system. Because I’m sure you find me pseudo-philosophical, philosopher.

 

You’re stepping back from me, philosopher. You need to. You’re watching me … perform. Because that’s what I’m doing.

 

Am I mad? My sanity’s mad, unlike yours. My sanity’s disturbed.

 

What if I were to say that I’m mad, utterly so. That I’ve lost it. What if I were to say that I barely hold it together … Or that the way I hold it together is itself mad. That my organisation and my management are both mad. That I have a direct access to chaos. What about that?

 

My afternoon madness. Which can only be expressed here. By the way I speak – with you. By the way I am – with you. And are you mad, too?

 

I’ve been possessed. I’ve been invaded.

 

I don’t use that word lightly: madness. It’s not a word among others. I have a direct access to it. If I open my mind widely enough, I‘ll be … engulfed.

Do you ever feel that? Do you ever hear voices?

No – do you?

I think I speak in voices. I say things not my own. Of which I’m not the origin. What do I say, philosopher? What do I know?

 

Do you think I’m saying these things just to sound interesting?

 

All this philosophy … We’ve worn philosophy out. Just say the word to yourself: philosophy … just say it. Just repeat the word. Go on … Philosophy, philosophy, philosophy.

I know more about philosophy than you do. I’m more attuned to philosophy. I belong in philosophy. It’s all mine. Don’t you see?

 

Why did the head of Organisation Management marry little ol’ me? Of course, he wasn’t head then. Why did he marry a wild card?

See, he loves chaos. For the same reason that he welcomed philosophy into his School. He’s a masochist. He likes things a little out of his control. Which is why he likes you. He told me he likes you. It’s official. He thinks you’re a good guy. He doesn’t understand you, but he likes that, too.

This is the last battle. This department is like the Nebuchadnezzar in the Matrix. The last true place. We’re red pilled – very red pilled. We’re the last best hope of humanity.

So who’s Neo? Who’s the One?

Cicero was Morpheus, right?

But Cicero fucked off …

Is it you, Shiva? Are you the One?

We have to justify our lives, philosophically. Make something of this. So it isn’t just chaos and blind chance. Or rather, making something out of chaos and blind chance.

A philosophical school … A movement. A cadre.

No, not that … God … Not even that.

Not-even philosophy: that’s an idea. That could be the name of our school. Of our non-school.

Could it?

 

We’ve a chance to become something. Great maybe. Wouldn’t you like to become great? To have books written about you? To have books written about us – about our not-even-philosophy …

And this wouldn’t just be some provincial philosophy department. It would be another continental philosophy department. We’d be known for something. People would come from all over the world to study here.

Look, the point about not-even-philosophy is that it’s not even philosophy. No one would be coming to study anything.

The void … that’s the ultimate topic of our lecturers. Their object. Their subject, too. The void’s what our lectures are about, and what ultimately gives our lectures. What speaks through us, as we lecture.

 

All’s lost, and everything’s lost and there’s no point in anything: that’s what we’re showing them … It means they never have to be fooled. It means they can’t be deceived.

 

The void: that’s the lesson. The nothing at the heart, the hollowness at the core.

 

The void, that isn’t nothingness, isn’t being. The overturning. The neither one not the other. The ceaseless … vacillation. That never settles.

 

There’s no there there. There’s nothing there. Just disappearance. Just wandering. Blankness.

 

The void. Where God unravels. Where God gives unto … what? A roaring. A blankness.

 

The void … that’s what we call it. That’s the only name, The void: and it’s not even a name. It’s the absence of a name.

 

The void’s everywhere. This is the time of the void. The game is fucking up.

Only now is the void revealing itself as what it was, all along. Only now are the true conditions revealing themselves.

This is what revelation was, all along. But now it’s showing itself in its nothingness. As just: the void. As the echoing nothing. As the voiding of it all.

 

Doing the void’s work. Doing the void’s unwork. The great erosion.

The crisis is huger than all of us. The levee’s going to break.

What levee?

The spiritual levee. We’re all fucked, even Organisational Management.

Are you sure?

You can’t manage your way out of disaster. You can’t organise the End.

 

Hannibal, in a hatred-of-Organisational-Management trance. In a horror-of-Organisational Management trance.

Clicking fingers in front of his face. Wake up! Snap out of it!

 

These unbearable people. These stifling people. These death-on-two-legs people. These death-wielders. These purveyors of nonsense.

Do they believe their own lives? Do they even know they’re lying?

 

Tell me we’re not going to be like them. Tell me we’re not going to be brainwashed.

I can feel my brain going. Like, I want to obey. I want to go over to their side. Wouldn’t it be easy?

 

Don’t be weak. Don’t give in. Don’t yield. They’re trying to get into your head. They’re trying to make your feel weak, feel wrong. Like you’re some kind of aberration. They know all the techniques of menticide. They’ve studied all the behavioural psychology techniques. They know what they’re doing.

 

We call ourselves mediocre, but these people …

This isn’t just mediocrity. This is intelligent mediocrity. This is able mediocrity. They’re recruited because they actually believe in this stuff.

Frightening.

Surely they’re not human. Surely they’re reptilian, or whatever.

They are human, which is the true horror. 

I don't believe it. This is an alien takeover. This a demonic infestation. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them levitate …

 

Something is wrong here. Desperately wrong.

What's wrong is that there's nothing wrong. That this is how it is now. 

Don’t you think it’s suspicious, the way Organisational Management are taking philosophy in?

I don’t know.

Isn’t there some hidden agenda?

Not that I know of.

So all this is happening in good faith? You’re not even a little bit suspicious?

Not really.

You’re an innocent. An Organisational Management innocent.

And you’re a philosophy paranoid. Is this really how you think the world works? Conspiracies? Hidden agendas?

Sure. Why, do you think everything’s just out in the open? There’s a logic to all this that only the paranoid and the conspiratorial can understand. Those attuned to the real workings of things.

Only philosophers, in other words …

Maybe …

So … philosopher. Is that what you call yourself: a philosopher?

You’d never call yourself a philosopher. It’s an honorific. Something you have to achieve.  

I’ll call you philosopher, philosopher … You have a philosophical air. As I, no doubt, have an Organisational Management air.

I don’t think you have an Organisational Management air.

I’ll take that as a complement. I’m actually very philosophical, for an organisational manager. But I don’t expect you to believe that.

My friends actually think you might be a synth.

A what?

Like, an android – a biogenetic android.

But I’m not a robot, am I? Look at me: do you think I’m full of circuits and wiring, or whatever?

Synths are made out of biological tissue, which means no circuits or wiring – they’re entirely organic. The crucial difference is that they’re lab-grown, like, not born.

Like in Blade Runner?

Exactly – like the replicants in Blade Runner. Who look just like us, except that they have no emotions.

I have emotions.

You think you have emotions. Maybe they’re simulated emotions.

There was that test, right … to see whether the replicants were human or not …

Sure. They’d ask someone under suspicion a bunch of questions that are supposed to provoke an emotional response.

Like what? Give me an example.

Like, you realise there’s a wasp crawling on your arm. You: a) swat, b) squash, c) savour, d) trap. What’s the answer?

Well, I guess it wouldn’t be savour, would it? Give me another one.

Okay. Now and then you contemplate life alone. It is… a) Independent, b) Inconceivable, c) Insulting, d) Intriguing. Which one?

Intriguing: that’s what I’m not supposed to say. Actually, life alone would be very tedious. Don’t you think life on your own would be very tedious? Or would you prefer living on your own?

You see a friend who has suffered bereavement. Afterwards you feel … a) Annoyed at their lack of engagement, b) Powerless to help, c) Saddened or d) Bored. 

D) Bored … ever so bored. Infinitely bored. I’m bored of bereavement and bored of these very-easy-to-see-through questions and bored of everything … Ask me some real questions. About real thing.

Okay, some other questions. Tell me your life story in five minutes.

Born. Grew old. Grew bored. Married … I would say happily, but I’m not so sure …

Tell me yours.

Now that would be tedious.

The real philosophical question is whether we should kill ourselves or not. That’s Camus, right?

Sure. The Myth of Sisyphus.

And what conclusion have you come to? Should we kill ourselves?

There might be other ways to entertain ourselves.

The Organisational Management move. The last move. The assimilatory move. Turning us all into philosophical Marranos.

Philosophical what?

Those Jews forced to convert to Christianity and who would henceforward practice their faith in secrecy. Until they even forget who they once were.

Will that happen to us? Will we forget?  

 

We’ll live in the secret, which can never be brought into the Organisational Management light, and must never be brought into the light.

We’ll live in the secret. It’ll inhabit us, take us over. We’ll become the purest philosophers of all, who’ve even forgotten all philosophy. We’ll pass for Organisational Managers. But we won’t be Organisational Managers.