Author: Lars Iyer

Don’t you think the world’s so beautiful that we should just die? That we should just fall down and die. Don’t you ever feel that? That it’s so unbearable, just to live? That it’s so impossible, just to live? Just to fucking go on?

Don’t you feel that we just sully time? That we shouldn’t just continue to exist? That our lives are … careless? That we just … crash into things? Destroy things? Destroy the whole fucking world?

 

Couldn’t we just kill ourselves? Isn’t that the most appropriate thing to do? Why do we have to go on and on? This is it. It’s over – now. That’s what I want to say. Right now. Today. Right now …

 

I want to fall upwards, into the sky. And burn up. Fall faster and faster.

 

So what are we supposed to do – just live? How do you live, anyway?

Would you even miss me if we never saw one another again? Would I miss you? I don’t know.

 

Is this, like, a success or a failure? On whose terms? On what terms? What has this been about?

 

It doesn’t have to succeed to succeed. It doesn’t have to last to last.

 

So what was it? It wasn’t anything. What was it for? It was for nothing. And I like that thought: that it was for nothing.

What should it have to be?

What’s anything, anyway? What’s it for? All of it? What are we doing? What have we been doing? What does it add up to?

 

Why should anything add up to anything? Just let it go. Just let it vaporise, vanish. Just let it go vague. And one day you’ll remember it, maybe. One day, it may come to you, or not. You may remember this, or that.

 

There’s no need to remember any of this. No need to keep it. We should just … release it all into forgetting. What was there to remember, anyway? What’s going to be left of it? Where’s it all going to go?

Into the memory of God.

Is that true? Does God remember things? Or does he simply forget? Isn’t God forgetting – the power of forgetting. God will forget everything for us. Will release it into forgetting. Just as we should be released into forgetting.

 

So we’ll release it into the forgetting of God. God will forget it all for us.

Release it unto God. Let it be peaceful in God. Let it be calm in God.

 

Would you miss me? I’d miss me – this me. I’d miss what I’d become.

 

I’m tired of atheists. I used to be an atheist.

An atheist is a very boring thing to be. The most boring people are atheists.

What do you believe in?

I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything anymore.

 

I’ve forgotten everything but God. God remembers me now. I’ve forgotten everything except God’s memory of me. See, I’m profound, philosopher. Or God’s profound in me.

I speak like I’m stoned. But I’m not even stoned. Is that what it means to do philosophy?

Fuck, I’m not even drunk. I’m not even anything. I’m not even alive. I’m not even dead. I’m not even anything. I’m not even nothing. I’m not even not even. Fuck.

 

I’m changing into an unknown person. I don’t recognise myself in the mirror.

 

I don’t know how to answer the simplest question. I’m stoned without being stoned. Drunk without being drunk.

Like being in that space of desire, where romantic things may or may not be happen, and just hovering there, forever.

That’s what I want. When nothing’s happened yet. When something might happen … When things might begin …

And it’s so still, and calm. And everything’s perfect. Isn’t that the best moment?

 

It’s all about a mood, right? And not spoiling the mood. The romantic mood. Or rather, the on-the-brink-of-romance mood. When things might or might not happen.

 

This is military grade flirtation. I’m defenceless. I’m won over.

 

Do you believe in God, philosopher? I think I do, tonight. This night. I think you’re going to lead me to God.

What does that mean? I think you’re the person I’m going to talk about God with. That’s what’s you’re about for me.

 

Everything’s so still. And calm. We’re in the calm eye of the hurricane. The city’s hurricane. It’s all turning around us.

What is?

Everything. The whole city. Wheeling around us. Like we’re the centre of the galaxy, and the galaxy’s arms are just turning around us.

We’re at the heart of all things. In the secret place at the heart of everything. Where God would be, if there was a God.

 

And God’s just this wave of calm, right? God’s this wave of calm saying, everything’s going to be alright. Is everything going to be alright, philosopher? For who? For us, maybe? For the, like, universe? For everything?

 

And isn’t that the most perfect moment of it: when you don’t know what’s going to happen? When the whole romantic thing hasn’t, like, locked in? When things aren’t fixed … When it isn’t like a programme you’re going to follow. When it’s, like, possible and impossible at the same time.

 

When we’re just a thought in the mind of God …  Where the calmness is and we’re not. Where nothing is and we’re not. Where there’s just silence, and it’s not even our silence. A silence that doesn’t belong to us, or belong to anyone.

Don’t they understand that none of this is important? Can’t they see through the world? Why do they play within the rules? Why do they believe in the Matrix? Why can’t they see through it all?

Have they ever hated anything – will all their hearts? Hatred of the world: have they ever known that?

World-perpetuators. World-apologisers. They’re well-adjusted to the world. They fit into it: the world – this world.

They accept the principle of the world. They accept the fundamental order of the world. They accept the world as system. They even love it, the world as system.

They’re world-accepters, not world despisers. They don’t want to clear the world away. They don’t want to see it destroyed. The fact that the world isn’t intolerable to them is the ultimate indictment. The fact that they can bear it go on is what’s incredible.

The fact that they can put up with such things without immediately wanting to kill themselves is unfathomable. The fact that they don’t just want to wink out of existence should only awaken our incredulity.

The capacity for tolerance! Forbearance! The fact that they think it should go on! The fact that it isn’t totally invalidated for them, the whole world. That it should allow itself to exist. That there can be more of it, and yet more. The fact that the world, to them, hasn’t done enough.

The fact that it should go on perpetuating itself, go on existing as a fundamental crime. The fact that there’s always more world, and more after that. The fact that no open has put a stop to it.

The fact that the world hasn’t strangled itself, hasn’t thrown itself from the highest place. The fact that the world hasn’t suicided, hasn’t given up, hasn’t thrown in the towel. The fact that it allows itself to go on, that the world is the world, and will still be the world tomorrow.

The fact that they can simply live in the world, simply be in the world. The fact that they’re not allergic to the world.

The fact that they’re calm, even handed, even voiced. The fact that they’re measured. The fact that they’re not lost in despair. The fact that despair isn’t all that’s visible in their faces. The fact that they appear happy enough, content enough. The fact that they can go about their business. Do their contented thing. With others who are content! With others just like them! With non-despairers! With glad-handers! With happy campers!

The fact that they haven’t felt the imperative to hang themselves! The sirens’ song of suicide! The fact that they do not feel that things cannot go on! Not as they are! Not as they have been! The fact that the order of the world is tolerable to them. That it can and should last. That this is how things are and should be!

The fact that they see no need for a way out. The fact that they don’t want to press the ejector button. The fact that they don’t want to pull the emergency break. The fact that they haven’t yet hung themselves.

We’re the true seers. We’re the true visionaries. We’re the ones who see the truth. To whom the truth has been revealed.

But we’re the ones who Know. For better or for worse. Our lives are strange. Everything we experience: a series of signs. Messages, sent from where? From on high? From below?

Why us? What happened, and to us? Why were we the chosen ones? What’s our significance? What’s special about us? Why were we given the powers of discernment?

So we were right about something, after all. So we were good at something, after all. So we were good for something – we had a role.

All our lives, preparing for it, although we didn’t know it. All our lives, being shaped, being prepared.

All our lives, primed for apocalypse. Fill of apocalyptic expectations. Ready for apocalypse. Watching out for apocalypse. Alert for all the apocalyptic signs. On the watch. And didn’t it mean we knew the true apocalypse from a false one? Didn’t we sense the falsity of their apocalypse – of their attempted apocalypse?

We had apocalyptic antennae. We Knew Things. We were alert. Watchful. We scanned the skies.

 

It’s happening more quickly now. Things are speeding up. Their agenda is rushing at breakneck speed. Why are they in such a hurry? Why is here such urgency?

Are we the only ones who feel it? The rushing? The streaming? The whole world … It’s urgent for them … Is it a sign that they’re losing control, or gaining it? Are they losing or winning? And what can we do about it?

 

We sense it: a kind of rushing. An acceleration. They’ve gone up a gear. And another. They’ve pressed turbo injection. It’s dizzying.

Our hope: a black dawn is rising. The dark sky is opening. The greater sky. The blacker sky. Our hope: the sky of non-meaning is rising. The nihilistic sky.

To be saturated by it: the nihilistic sky. The sky of nihilism. Passing through us, every pore.

A nihilistic wind is blowing. But a freeing nihilism. A don’t-take-any-of-it-seriously nihilism. A this-is-not-your-world nihilism. An anarchic breeze nihilism.

 

The greater Sky. The sky of disaster, the stars blown out like candles. That’s our sky. Which makes us laugh. Which our laughter up to. Thank God for that sky, which means we’re never fooled.

The sky that laughs through us. That rips through us. That trembles through us. The sky that shines through our eyes. Our sky. Our relief. Our distance. Which means that we will not be fooled.

Our laughter is the laughter of the sky. Our salvation. Our happiness. Our freedom. Our alibi. Our gladness. The night that we hold between us. That laughs between us.

What the uni could be …

What could it be?

A point of resistance. A fightback.

Oh yeah? This is where thought goes to die – everyone knows that.

 

We academics are not just good for nothing. We make it all worse. We supply it all with its legitimating discourse. We’re shock troops for the Destruction. We’re part of selling the Destruction. Of giving it a language.

 

We’re placeholders. Lieutenants of the nothing. We’re keeping the place for NOTHING. Nothingness speaks through us.

The void blows through us, right? We’re void thinkers, void writers. The void speaks of itself through us. The void calls out to the void in our students.

 

Our irrelevance is, like, incredible. It amazes me. I’m stunned by it. The irrelevance of the whole humanities.

We’re beautifully irrelevant. I’d say ornamental, but we’re not even that. We make no difference whatsoever.

We actually glory in it, our irrelevance. We drink toasts to our irrelevance. To the great joke played on us.

We’re not even irrelevant – that’s the problem. The humanities are a tool. We’re useful idiots. We’re actually selling the collapse.

 

Teaching into nothing. Into the void. Who are we trying to reach? What are we trying to say? What, to bring across. It never mattered. It doesn’t matter. It’s speech for nothing. We prepare our lectures in vain. Put together PowerPoints in vain. For no purpose.

 

We teach from a script – their script. We don’t know it, but we do.

 

We have to understand the way we’re being played. All of us. How they’re using us.

They – who are they?

They are fucking legion.

 

What are we for? What do they have planned for us?

 

We think we can just do our academic thing. Our philosophy thing.

We think we’ve been allowed to do something. We think we’ve been let off the leash. But we’re on the leash.

We think this is our chance. That it’s a kindness. That we’ve been indulged. That the world’s relented. But the world hasn’t relented.

We think we’ve got one over on the world. That this is a little reprieve. We don’t want to look the Organisational Management gifthorse in the mouth. But we should.

*The slow invasion of nothingness. The slow voiding. Is that it? Is that how it’s going to happen? A slow numbing. The poison gradually reaching all the extremities?

There’s not even a magnificence to the collapse. It’s not even some sublime spectacle.

Not yet. That’s not how things fall apart in an advanced civilization. It’s slower than that.

 

Look, the collapse won’t happen all at once. It’s like the fall of Rome. Unless you lived in a city and actually saw the barbarians sacking it, you’d barely know it was happening.

Collapse was slow, you lived in a fancy villa. Gradually, it gets harder to get food. You’re forced to go local. You turn your swimming pool into a pig sty. Your fancy guest rooms into stables.

Your world contracts. It takes a whole. But one day, you find yourself demolishing a wing of your house to build a cow shelter or whatever. It’s the slow fall apart.

No way – this collapse is going to be different. It was escalator up, and it’s going to be elevator down. Like, empty lift-shaft down. Like a collapsing building, falling in real time. It’s going to be bad …

 

We have to find the level of the collapse. To let it play out through us. Just roll through us. Just let it find itself in us. Come to itself in us. Fill us.

 

We’re drinking the collapse – don’t you see? This is liquid collapse.

The world’s, like a total institution. There’s got to be somewhere else. Somewhere we can flee to. We need to get out.

But go where? With what means? How?

Travel. There are other cultures. Other countries.

They’re all the same. Its all becoming the same. It's the same logic. Invading everywhere. And we’d just carry it with us, that logic. Because we’ve internalised it. Because we’re following it ourselves. There’s no way out.

 

Come on, we’re doing alright, aren’t we? We’re not sentenced to cross amputation in some Saudi jail? We’re not be held for ransom by some crack high child soldiers. We need some perspective.

I’m sick of perspective. I’m sick of being reasonable. The only solution is to throw ourselves out of the window. Right now. All at once. No more compromise. No more of this.

 

The demands made upon us. That we reshape our souls. That we be trained. That we get used to this. That we put the collar on. This is their world. Their rules. This is their system. It’s entirely against us … our kind. We need to become philosophical pirates. Outlaws. Robin Hoods.

How the fuck do we do that?

 

We’re so easily discouraged. But that’s part of it, our discouragement. It’s part of the problem.  

We want the universe to act for us. Apocalyptically. In a great pre-emptive strike. In a cosmic disaster, that began long ago, spreading through everything. That’s destroying the universe atom by atom. Wouldn’t that be beautiful?

This is actually a mental illness.

I hope it is. I hope everyone’s going mad from this. Everyone in the universe!