Author: Lars Iyer

See, our youthful charm’s virtually gone. We’re jaded now. Old! We used to amuse people … inadvertently, I think. We were involuntary jesters. People liked to watch us trip ourselves up. Our pratfalls – all the more charming because they were never staged.

Our foolishnesses, plural. Our gaucheness. Our enthusiasms. Our excitements. And the mistakes we made. The most obvious ones, the most charming ones. Mispronunciations. The stuff we didn’t know. Obvious Biblical allusions we failed to pick up. Classical references. And the way that would phase us.

Because we were rodeo clowns, before the main event. Palate cleansers. Light relief. It can’t be high seriousness all the time, can it? They laughed at us, good naturedly. And, we good naturedly laughed along. We joined in. They laughed and so did we, and we all parted as friends.

Wasn’t that the best of all worlds? We were amusing, they were amused. We had a role. We were valued. Ah, the best of times. But we’re too old for that now, aren’t we? Something’s expected of us now … Eyes are on us, now we’ve lucked our way into jobs. We’re supposed to deliver … The time for youthful folly has passed …

It’s about making a beginning. Setting things in motion. It’s not all about promise anymore. About potential. About what we’ll do in the future. Now’s the time to get going. To break open our own thought-paths. To pursue our special way of doing things. To deepen our modus operandi.  

It’s time for us to work! To guard against the danger of meandering to nothing. Of lack of focus. Of being idiot lecturers, doing this, doing that. Something to orientate the whole of our lives; to give our days direction: that’s what we need. Until everything in us points in the same direction. Until we’re oriented towards one thing. The thing.

And each day giving unto the next day, in the great labour. In the work of a lifetime, that seizes our whole lives. That carries us up. That bears us up. Work! Great work! A life-work. That unifies our writing, our teaching.

Until we’re known for our focus on a problem. On an area. On a thinker, or group of thinkers. Until we are ones to turn to for a perspective on this issue or that period or that constellation of ideas. Until we each have a Thing to which our names are linked. Which means that we’re the ones they’ll turn to for a new encyclopaedia entry on X, on Y. For an essay in a collection on A or B. To join a conference panel on C or D.

It isn’t enough to flop around. To turn from this and this to this. We need Commitment. Direction. A Method. That is the slipway to our future work. To our magnum opuses. To the Substantial Books we’ll one day write …

 

Imagining our Substantial Books. Imagining the lengthy acknowledgements pages of our Substantial Books. Two pages long! Three pages! Mentioning all the prestigious places to which we’ve been invited. Princeton Theological Seminar (in our dreams!) Stanford Philosophical Disputes series (as if!) The Centre for Moral Sciences at Cambridge (not a chance!) Showing we’re Travellers! Expeditioners. International-Circuiters. Waymakers! Channel-Crossers! (please!)

Thanking all the funding bodies who were so generous with their support (laugher). To Leverhulme for their early career researcher grants (not in a million years!) To the Wellcome Trust development fund (not in a trillion!)  Mention an learned institution or two. Especially ones with Latin titles. The Collegium. Hermeneutica Scotia. I was very grateful to discuss ideas from this work at …

Thanking various eminences for looking at our work in draft. For sharing their comments. How amazing they’d even design to look at our work. Isn’t that something? We must have such friends! Associate in such circles! Must be held in such esteem! (We don’t have such friends. We don’t know anyone.)

Perhaps a line in Italian, or something to recall high times on the continent. Larks in Florence, or whatever. A Roman idyll. Strolling the canals with Vattimo. Isn’t that what we want? (Never) And a modest disclaimer. I am, of course, responsible for any errors here.

And thanks to our colleagues for providing such a supportive environment for academic discussion (snorts.) Thanks to our institutions for invaluable sabbatical leave (chortles.)

Imagining cute asides to thank partners. Children! To profess love. To thank them for their patience! For their forbearance! For keeping quiet while a Major Work was being composed. Imagining tender, personal dedications. An above all, thanks to … For showing me the meaning of love … Without whom none of this would have been possible … (As if we’d ever have partners! As if we’d ever reproduce!)

Our Substantial Books! Published by a prestigious publisher! Oxford University Press … Stanford University Press … MIT Press … To show that we’re proper Academics! Unignorables! (but we’re eminently ignorable) That we’ve thoroughly defeated the getting-published Boss. The getting-our-names-known Boss.(Pure delusion.)

 

Accumulating peer esteem indicators. Joining the editorial board of some journal. Launching some book series for some decent publisher or another. Being invited to keynote here or there.

Doing the edited collection thing, setting the agenda on this or that trendy topic (what is it this year?) Inviting lofty names to contribute. Getting your name known in turn. Having it associated with this thinker or another. With this trendy topic or another.

Editing a book, organising the contributors. Shaping their contributions. Getting them to submit on time. Combing through their work. Flattering egos, where required. Smoothing ruffled feathers. Writing an Introduction, summarised each of the essays in turn. Making a case for the relevance of the volume. Its importance. Why it had to be published now. An essential contribution to the debate … A decisive intervention …

And finishing your own book. Your PhD dissertation, reconceived, rewritten. There it is, in print. In forbiddingly expensive hardback, but quite real. You’ve got a couple of copies on your office shelf. And you’re real, too, by association. You’ve been made real by the book: what a marvel. You’ve been called into existence. You walk the corridors differently. You sit in meetings differently.

You’re like a made man among the mafiosi. Your position has shifted. Your place in the hierarchy. You’ve emerged from the magma. People look at you differently. Things are expected of you …

 

We’ve essentially turned out back on career progression. Of promotions. Of being able to move from this university to another. We’re not going to be invited to apply for jobs. We’re not going to be approached to be part of some funding bid. We’re not going to keynote at some conference. We’re not Players. We’re not types from whom anything is Expected.

We’re lost highways. Cul-de-sacs. We’re backgrounders. Also-rans. We’re nobodies. Inconsequentials. Whom no one wants to court. Whom no one wants the ear of. Who wield no academic power. Whom no one wants to sleep with, really.

We’re junior academics, that’s all. Not PhD students, gauche and eager. Not in limbo types, looking for work, all haggard and desperate. People know our names. Chat to us. After all, we’ll be at the same conferences year after year. We’re part of the melee, part of the ambience. Worth shaking hands with in greeting, exchanging a few words with. After all, you might be sitting at conference dinner with us. We might have facing rooms across a conference corridor. Might end up in some foreign city with time to while away and there we’d be, with time to while away.  

They might need a favour from us. Might need to recruit us as external examiners. Or as journal referees. Or to revalidate degrees … We could be useful to them one day. And besides, aren’t we fun? Don’t we have larks? Can’t we be counted on to have a bottle of spirits in our rooms after the conference bar closes?

We’re known. We’re on the map of continental philosophy UK. The guys from Six Bridges. There must be something about us. We can’t be complete idiots. (Oh but we are …)

We’re in bad taste. We’re a bad joke. It’s been allowed to go on too long. It’s time to put an end to us. Quietly, discreetly. Not to make too big a fuss about it. Not to draw attention to it.

Some things really should not be allowed. It’s not good for anyone. For us. For humanity. For the rest of the world. For the universe, probably. It’s probably upset some cosmic balance. Some cosmic weighing scales.

We should be put out of our misery. Because we are in misery – we must be. We can only be in misery, in our twistedness. In our perversion. In our perverted joys.

There are some things which really are intolerable. It’s nothing personal. It shouldn’t have been overlooked. It shouldn’t have been allowed to go on for as long as it did. There are limits.

There’s a wrong way of living, and a right one. It’s a question of … public decency. Things can only go on in this way for a while. Some things really are intolerable. And we shouldn’t be made to tolerate ourselves, not really. To permit ourselves.

 

Our twistedness. Our disgustingness. We’re more disgusting than anyone – we see it. We know it. We shouldn’t be allowed.  We should be expunged. Shut down. Forgotten. As an embarrassment! As an aberration! As where things were allowed to go too far. Where things went utterly wrong!

We should be scrubbed away. The stain of us removed. Unremembered. Shoved into the memory-hole. Lost in oblivion. Where we can do no further damage! Where we’re in no danger of spreading, like some disease …

We’re … unhealthy in some way. Dirty. Yes, yes. It’s a matter of public health. Yes, we understand. We know the measures required. We get that it’s not personal. Our kind … well, there shouldn’t be our kind, should there?

We were a symptom of the times, that’s all. The time’s hysteria. The time’s madness. All kinds of mistakes were made. And now it’s time for the clean-up.

We accept our sentencing. We agree with the verdict. We’re all for it. Wipe us out! Lead us in chains to the dungeons! Don’t let it go on another day!

The world will be brighter, after we’ve gone – we know that. Balance will be restored. Rationality. The philosophical method. Our kind must not last. Cannot be tolerated – not in the long term.

Complicity in evil – ultra-evil. There’s no stepping back. No pause. No way of holding ourselves back from the ceaseless screaming horror.

We are made part of the evil. They’ve signed us up for the evil. They’ve conscripted us for evil. It’s not enough that they’re evil – we must be evil too.

 

We desecrate ourselves. We’ve been made to desecrate ourselves. We destroy ourselves. We’ve been made to destroy ourselves. They’ve make us satanic.

 

We live in the world of lies, and we are made liars. We live in the world of death, and we are made dead.

 

Hatred is our truest feeling. Truth – in the form of hatred. Hatred as a way of loving what is true, what is right.

We hate because of what is good in us. We hate because of what is true in us.

 

Our horror: the inverted image of the light. It’s how we know the light.

 

The abyss of the world. The world-abyss. The world that hates us, and that we must hate. The evil that hates us, and that we must hate.

The world is turned against us. Their world – because they own the world. They’ve seized the world and laid hold of the world.

 

Why must we negotiate with evil? Why are we forced into the middle ground – their middle ground. Their so-called middle ground.

 

And this is why we must be fanatics. To resist their hideous strength. Their power of ruination. Their work of death. Their constant operation.

 

We live in the truth. Which is the meaning of our torment. Which is the meaning of our drunkenness. Which is why we are who we are.

Which is why we’ve come to the coast. Like Christians who look to the east for the risen Christ. Or who ascend pillars to await him. At least we’re waiting. At least we know the world is incomplete.

 

The coast is the place. Where the lie is exposed – and continually. By the extent of the sky. By the vastness of the sea.

The coast is for the undeceived. The coast is for the unfooled. The coast is for the not entirely destroyed.

We come here for the truth – to live in the truth.

The fogs of the coast: illumination. The clouds of the coast: brightness.

 

A last redoubt. A last holdout.

Will we be able to resist, at the coast? Will it be able to reach us, at the coast? Will their stormtroopers knock at our door at the coast?

Our hangovers. What could we have accomplished without them? Who could we have been? What could we have written? If we didn’t drink, what then? If we hadn’t destroyed ourselves last night, what might have we done today?

But we did it on purpose. We did it because we wanted to.

 

The world that is busyness, compromise. The world that only deepens your entanglement. The world that only destroys your independence. Your integrity. The world that is only a death-plunge, over and again. That only destroys you, over and again.

A crash – each day. A destruction – every day. And ceaselessly. The continual deepening of the crisis.

Which is why we meet the day hungover. Which is why we must make a pre-emptive strike against the ludicrousness of hope.

We’ve numbed ourselves in advance. We’ve made ourselves stupid in advance. Hangover-stupid. Hangover-blank.

Hangover-stupor: our perpetual state. Which means we never really come into focus. Which means we never really catch up with our emails. Which means we never really come to ourselves. That we’re never entirely alive in their world.

This is your banal phase. This is your banal affair. It’s a normie affair. A normcore affair. Before you meet some European. Some Italian, or whatever. Some fellow philosopher. Some continentalist.

And in the meantime: this. In the meantime … It’s always the meantime. It doesn’t get beyond the meantime. Here we are, in the middle of the meantime. In the middle of the day. And all the days are the same. And we’re just the same.

And we’re wearing through time. We’ve worn thought time. We can see right through it.

To what? What’s on the other side?

I don’t know. More of the same, probably.

 

Our atoms are growing farther apart. We’re less dense. We’re less ourselves. We’re porous … We’re merging into the afternoon. It’s entering into us. Saturating us.

We’re, like, wise with the afternoon. Vast with the afternoon. We’re dispersing. We’ll blow away …

 

Afternoon amnesia. Afternoon oblivion. Is it possible just to forget … everything? Except you, maybe.

 

We’re afternoon-drunk. Drunk on the afternoon. On the white, white sky. On all those clouds, where a blue sky’s supposed to be. Where God’s supposed to be.

Pallid daylight without depth … Where nothing’s revealed. Where everything is as it was. Where banality’s banality and nothing else.

 

Falling through the afternoon. Is that what we’re doing? Falling, just falling. Unanchored. No … responsibilities. Nothing to do, except … this. And what is this?

 

What’s love, anyway? We’re just contemplating love. We’re holding it at a distance, and looking at it. We’re far from love, just like we’re far from everything …

 

Something’s taking place through us. Despite us, almost. Against us. Something that’s not ours. Some kind of event – or non-event. Something that’s not happening. That’s subtracting happening from happening. What the fuck am I saying? What is this room doing to me?

 

The world’s still, isn’t it? Nothing’s moving. The clouds aren’t moving. Just unbroken white. There’s no wind. Nothing I can see, anyway. There aren’t even any birds. Where have the birds gone? Where has everything gone? Where have we gone?

 

Your flat’s adrift in the sky. Like in Wizard of Oz. We’re just floating through the sky. There’s nothing but whiteness.

 

I feel so vague. Do you feel vague? Are we supposed to feel like this? Like, we can’t think anything. Anything clear, anyway. Anything precise … We’ve been disarmed. We’re out of service. We’re not needed. We’re surplus to requirements. We were ordered by mistake, or whatever … And now what? What are we supposed to do? Just be, I think. Just float.

 

If I feel asleep now, what would happen? If I feel asleep and woke up and fell asleep and just … lived here, what then?

Would you like to live here?

Right now, I would. Right now …

 

I can’t even finish a sentence. It’s being drunk without being drunk. It’s getting lost when you’re trying to finish a … sentence … You don’t know where it’s going to end. Fuck, I can’t think a single clear thing …

 

I’m tired of being lost. I want to be found. I want to see God looking down at me through the skylight. God’s great eye. Wouldn’t that be something?

 

I feel like I’m falling. When I close my eyes, I get vertigo … Why do I come out here? Why do I feel these things? Does this flat do this to everyone? It’s like you’ve cast some spell over me. No – it’s like a spell’s been cast over both of us. Here at the coast.

 

I want to shout. I want to be heard.

Who by? I hear you.

Not by you. But by … God.

 

I want to shout something, just to show I can. Just to be able to. Just to be able to do anything. I don’t want to just give everything up. I don’t want to surrender. I don’t want to yield to this.

 

I feel so fucked. God, how will I ever get up? How will I ever do anything again?

I want to get dressed and go. I want to drive off. I want to go to the gym … Anything except this. But I like this …

 

You’re not going to save me. You’re not going to break my fall. You’re not going to do anything.

You don’t need saving.

What do I need? What do I want? What am I doing here? What’s anything? Why anything?

I don’t know what I used to know. And what I know now … isn’t good for anything. And I’m not good for anything. And nor are you, but you know that.

 

Are we meditating, or something? Are we praying or something? And to who? Who’s listening? Who’s watching?

 

The day will never end. It’ll never be over. It’ll just go on forever. This moment is, like, a forever moment. Now what? What next? It's not like it’s going anywhere. It’s not like it has a direction.

Do you ever feel everything you say is in quotes, like it’s been said before? By someone else, maybe. Or by us in another life … Do you ever feel that all this happened before, and we’re just living it again? That all this is part of the whole of life flashing before your eyes as you die?

 

Do you ever think it’s all been said before – that everything’s been said before? That we can’t say a single new thing? … It’s like all the words have already been prepared. All the scripts for lovers’ talk. All the things lovers have said. And we only get to quote …

 

Do you ever think that I might say something profound, just by chance? That would surprise you, wouldn’t it, philosopher? That I might be the clue to the truth of all things. Out of the mouth of the organisational manager, eh, philosopher? That I might be the key to it all … It might speak through me, whatever it is …

 

Where does all this talk lead? Where does it take us? Nowhere. The same place as we were before.

But everything’s a little bit different.

No, everything’s even more the same …

 

We’re so meta. Talking about his stuff. Instead of just … romancing. Fucking, or whatever.

Talking’s part of it.

I don't belive it.

 

Do you worry that we’ll never get to the point? That we’ll never talk about what really concerns us – what’s really important? Do you ever think that everything we say just gets in the way?

 

Listen to me. I used to be an organisational manager. What am I now: a philosopher?

 

All this talking, and we never get to the point.

What point?

There’s something important to be said, I’m sure of it. Something that wants to be said.

 

That’s enough shit-talking for one day. Have we talked enough? Have we decided things? Who’s listening, anyway?

God, maybe.

Does he tired of our wittering? He’s supposed to love us, but who could love us. I don’t love us.

 

All the stuff we’re saying echoes with something. What’s important is the echoing. What echoes through what we say.

What is it?

Some great rumbling. A roaring – but very far away.

What is it anyway? We always talk of it. Our being together. Our lust. Our ‘love affair’ in inverted commas. It. Like it had a life of its own.

Sure. It’s at work. It’s working through us. It’s doing things to us – with us. It’ll get tired of us at some point.

What’ll get tired?

It – just it. Our romance …

And then what’ll happen? Will it just disperse into the afternoon and disappear? God … And we’ll be none the wiser. And this whole affair will be like something we just dreamt up … The enchantment will lift. The spell will be uncast, or whatever. And we’ll wake up wondering what happened … Like Bottom’s dream, or whatever …

 

Are we getting tired of each other? Are we wearing it out, whatever it is. This thing. This it. That’s taking over our lives. Well, my life, anyway.

 

It conjured us up. We’re the poles of a relation called ‘it’. That’s just playing out through us. By means of us. Using us for its own ends.

Nature, you mean. Reproduction, you mean.

Don’t get all evolutionary biologist about it. It’s, like, more alive than us, greater than us, wider than us. Closer to the sky. Closer to the state of things. Closer to what’s real.

 

It’s happening. Through us. Despite us, even. Despite what we say or think we want … 

Nature, you mean.

Sure, but all of nature, like Spinoza said. All of the world. Which means God, too …

 

It’s happening. Through us.

Nature, you mean.

Yeah – nature. The mechanical world. The universe of fucking death. Which I’m part of, and you’re part of .. The same old mechanism, perpetuating itself.

Who’s capable of love nowadays, anyway? Who can do it? We don’t even believe in love. We don’t expect anything of it, not really. We know the fantasy stuff’s just fantasy. We’re grounded. We’re down to earth.

Speak for yourself.

We know it’s just hormones. It’s just nature’s way of making us reproduce, or whatever. We know it’s just chemicals. It’s evolution. Of course we do. We don’t expect anything of love. We’re not like that anymore. We’ve grown up, haven’t we? We’re not the naïve types we were …

Tawdry realism: is that the lesson of fifteen years of marriage?

Better than your pseudo religious stuff.

This is what maturity looks like.

Then God help us. God – literally – should fucking help us.

 

Nature wants to keep us together long enough to reproduce. Three years, where you’re addicted to each other, can’t live without one another. That’s enough to gestate a baby, see it through the first year of life.

What if we’re not natural? What if we were produced against nature?

Nothing’s against nature.

But what if? What if we’re some fluke? Some flaw?

Fuck you. Nature has the last laugh.

Does it?

 

Everything’s reduced to … hormones and chemicals and Nature capital N. All psychology has become, like, evolutionary psychology. It’s miserable. We, like, know everything, but it’s miserable, and it doesn’t matter that it’s miserable.

You can discount your feelings, right? You can explain them away. Psychological states … Just this feeling, that feeling. Nothing to do with what’s real … You explain yourself away. You can explain everything, and you don’t even have to believe in any of the stuff you say …

And what are you left with? God – these times. So overbearning, and so banal.

 

We don’t believe who we’re told we really are. We can’t believe it. We’re liars. We lie to ourselves – we have to. Because we can’t bear what we supposedly are.

 

No one believe in the grandeur of love anymore. No one believes in the dignity of the lover. 

 

I love you more than anything else in the world: what if I said that? What would it mean? What do I mean when I say that? Is it true, do you think?

You should know.

Should I? Turns out we don’t know anything at all.

I don’t think we’ve ever drunk enough – that’s the problem. We’ve never reached perfect drunkenness. Or if we have, we haven’t sustained it. We haven’t let drunkenness carry us with it. We’ve never followed its movement.

 

There’s a drunkenness we have to reach. It takes training. It isn’t easy. It’ s a discipline. You have to dedicate yourself to drinking. Night after night.

 

There are super-drinkers out there … like super-athletes. They’re paced for the long term. They’re dedicated. Disciplined.

 

Drunkenness isn’t the aim – it’s the byproduct. There’s something else you’re looking for when you drink. A way of tuning in. An attunement. There’s a way of sensing deeper movements. Like tectonic movements. But of the spirit. Spiritual movements.

 

I just think there are other planes we can reach. Of perception. Of being. We can live in other ways.

Through drinking?

There are ways of attuning ourselves to … God knows what. To God, maybe. To the movements of God. To the dreams of God. To the longings of God.

What does God long for?

Us – to turn our faces to Him. To acknowledge Him. To say: we are Your creatures. We were created by You.

 

There’s a glory … almost beyond our reach. But that we can touch, when we drink. There’s truth. Just there – just over there. That we could reach, if only we could reach out …

 

God is waiting for us … on the other side. We just have to find a way to go towards Him.

And drinking … Drinking is the way. The drunken way. The giving-it-all-up way.

 

We have to discover the current. Let the current carry us. Take us there.

Where?

To God, of course. To the kingdom of fucking heaven.

 

We can be flawed. We can be fools. We can be borderline alcoholics, which we are. But God doesn’t mind. God will forgive us. God is bigger than that.

God knows we thirst for him. God knows we’re holy drinkers. That drinking is the path. That it’s a way in which we’re allowed to come close.

 

I’m religious when I drink. This is all I know of religion, practically.

God is here. I know it. God wants me to drink. God wants me to drink more and more.

A religious drinker. A drinker who gets more religious with every drink. It’s beautiful … it’s all beautiful.

What’s beautiful?

God’s creation. God’s drunken creation.

 

I want to hear a drunken sermon. What’s our text for tonight? This bit from Paul. The powers … the fucking principalities.

… For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places … take unto you the whole armour of God.

Fucking A.

 

I like your drunken smile … I love it, your drunken smile.

 

Bless me father … bless us all … we need your benedictions. We need to feel as though we are good. That we can be good. Bless us all.

 

Tonight, we’re following God’s plan. We’re giving ourselves over to God. We’re putting ourselves in God’s fucking hands.

 

Tonight, the whole world is drunk. Tonight everyone and everything is drunk. We’re drunk in the world-drunkenness. We’re messianic people. We’re God’s people. We’re drunk and drunk and drunk … We’re God’s elect. A drunken choir. We sing upwards …

 

Tell us, Cicero. Fucking testify. Tell us about God. Tell us the most beautiful God-stories. I want to hear about angels. About Adam. About the Son of fucking Man.

Tell us the most beautiful things Jesus did. Just the words. How he overturned the tables. How he told those parables. How he was crucified – fucking crucified. How he was fucking born again. How he rolled away the fucking stone.

Cicero, in his cups. Cicero, drinking. Epically. Heroically. All day. And now he’s reached an end of the day wisdom. A whisky wisdom. A coming of night wisdom.

Cicero, calm. Cicero, wise, with the wisdom of God. He knows what God knows. He’s Certain, with the Certainty of God.

Cicero’s traversed the day like you traverse a life. Cicero’s lived everything. All lives. He’s been to the end and back. And now he’s ready to share his wisdom.

Cicero’s reached the apocalyptic night. He’s reached the last night of all. He’s speaking from the end – the utter end. He’s voicing what’s to come. Last things, eschatological things. They’re second nature to him, at this time of night. It’s the language he speaks. He couldn’t speak otherwise. Truth, truth. And all you can do is listen.

 

My hatred of the world: you don’t take it seriously, do you? It’s the inverse of a love – a great love. See, I love the world, too. I love it more than anything. The real world – not this fakery. Not this stage set. Not this scenery.

 

I’ve retired from frontline thought. From teaching, in other words.

From teaching!? What a loss. Cicero’s famous disaster lectures. Cicero's famous messianism lectures.

 

I thought you were going to write a magnum opus.

Life is my magnum opus.

Drinking yourself to death will be your magnum opus.

It’s a honourable death. We have to admit we’ve been defeated.

 

Do not struggle. They’ll simply use the energy against you. Sink. Fall. Embrace the catastrophe. Make sweet love with the catastrophe. Fuck the catastrophe – why not? Be fucked by it. Or are you too busy with Ava? But then maybe she is the catastrophe, who knows?

 

All the exits are closed. The doors are sealed. It’s really only a question of how you’re going to kill yourself.

 

The only honest thing to do is drink. Is fade away. It’s only death games from now on.

 

There must have been precedents in defeat. Who are our precursors? The utterly routed? What did they do?

Just died from depression. Wasted away.

Is that what’s going to happen to us?

 

The void – is that it? We have to head into the void. The void will come to us. We don’t have to head anywhere.

The void will knock on the door, like the secret police. No – the void is already inside you. Understand that. It’s in your head. Your own head.

You’ve been hijacked. Everything good and compassionate about us has been hijacked. Every kindly impulse we have. They know how to do it. They have the behavioural psychologists. The nudge units. The techniques.

They’ve seen them succeed. Beyond their dreams! And now they’re emboldened. Now the master plan – their master plan.

 

Fade-out – that’s the best we can hope for. To just go under. To have the good taste just to die of despair.

 

Killing yourself grants too much power to them. It’s their gesture, not yours. Sink down, and wait to die. Sink down, and drink, waiting to die. There’s an honour in that.

 

As in the days of fucking Noah, right?