Work in Progress

The strange joy of stupidity.

Stupidity, amusing itself. Stupidity, laughing at itself. Quite comfortable with itself. And isn’t that the problem: that stupidity is comfortable with itself?

 

Drunkenly contemplating it, our stupidity. Drunkenly pleased with it.

This is how we entertain ourselves. This is how stupidity entertains itself, passes the hours.

 

We have to experience the ache of our stupidity. The fact that it wants to be something else.

I don’t believe that.

 

What would we talk about, if we weren’t stupid?

We wouldn’t need to talk, that’s the thing. Stupidity is what we do. Stupidity is what holds us together. Stupidity is what we talk about. What we talk from. The twists and turns of our stupidity keep us alive.

 

Our stupidity display, like the courtship display of birds of paradise. Our stupidity dance. But who are we trying to seduce? Spreading stupidity’s peacock feathers … But there’s no one there to see.

 

Stupidity’s the only thing we have. The only thing that might save us.

From what?

From knowing our stupidity, of course.

How clever.

 

What makes us think that we’re especially stupid? Isn’t that a kind of hubris? I mean, why should we suppose that here’s something special about our stupidity? Something that sets it apart?

 

Are we God’s idiots? The devil’s?

 

Stupidity isn’t always meek. It isn’t always servile. Stupidity can roar. Can shout. Stupidity has a tempers.

And there can be peaceful stupidity, too. Sweet stupidity, lying on its back, looking up at the sky. Quiet stupidity, lying there in the water, keeping itself afloat.

As though a vast and subtle bomb had dropped. As if a soft explosion had blown through everything. Destruction – only without anything being destroyed. Ruination – but with nothing actually ruined.

Everything has been shifted, just a little. Moved sideways. Tilted, just a little. We do not live in the same world. The end has come and gone.

Our despair is real. It’s the realest thing about us.

We have instincts. We know what to reject. We know what’s wrong – utterly wrong – about the world. We know what to despise.

And we know what to love, too. We know in what direction we should turn.

We know we should lift our heads. We know that it’s from the sky that it will come. From on high. From the most high.

We know evil is not final. We know the world isn’t totally fallen. We know that sin is not absolute.

We know that the lies aren’t too great after all. The poison hasn’t worked after all. We not completely abandoned.

We know the clouds will part one day. We know the sun will come – the forbidden sun.

Is our idiocy sincere? Is our idiocy really a wanting to change? Is our despair an actual prayer? Do we merely wallow in our stupidity, dwell in it, rather than actually want to be transformed?

If we felt, really feel, our mediocrity, what then? Might something really happen then? If we experienced, really experienced our despair at our idiocy, might we not be idiots anymore?

The aching of all things in their self-hatred. In their loathing for themselves. In their atheism.

The atheism of air, of water, of the earth. And our own atheism, which is at the heart of our self-hatred.

The air hates being the air. The air’s just wandering lost in air. The air, dazed in air. Just like water’s flowing lost in water. Just like water weeps tears in water. And we hate being ourselves, we who are without God.

All we are is twistedness. All we are is hatred. And I don’t want to just hate.

Hollowness: it’s what we have in place of a soul. And I want a soul.

 

We’ve got to stop hating ourselves. Who would we be if we weren’t contorted? And twisted?

We need to be opened out of ourselves. Out of our self-devouring. Out of our hatred.

 

Love: do you believe in that? Do you believe in a love that could possess us? That could just beam out of us? That’s what it would mean to become an angel: love, beaming out of us.

 

I want to be opened. I don’t want to be hollow. To be possessed by something good, not something evil.

I’d like to die as an angel. Emptied of all things. Cured, right? Just an aching soul. Crying upwards to be extinguished. And then … extinguished.

 

Some undoing. Some rewinding. Some backtracking. Some reversing. A kind of subtraction. A retrospective … abortion, of a kind.

 

Time moving backwards, almost back to where it all began. And from where it might not begin. From where nothing might happen.

 

No longer committing the sin of existing. The sin of daring to be.

No longer committing the primordial violation. The horror of coming into being. The vileness of existing at all.

You see, I’d like to be an angel.

So don’t angels exist?

Angels are better than existence.

They’re already in hell, the poisoners – the liars in charge. They’re already being tortured, which is why they torture. They’re full of fear, which is why they must cause fear.

They’re lashing out because they’re damned. And because they know their damnation.  

 

Are they going to win, the evil ones?

They know that in reality, God has already won. Which only makes them madder

Already?

Long ago. The outcome of the battle has long been decided.

And what will we do until then?

Pray ceaselessly.

 

They’re doing things just for the sake of destruction. Just to wreck things.

Evil destroys its vessel. It destroys the person who does it. It destroys the world, or tries to. Our whole evil world … Because it hates itself, evil. It hates what it’s made the world become.

 

They’ve turned the world over to the demons. They’ve let them have the world.

Why? Until when?

 

There’s a lot to be afraid of. There’s everything to be afraid of.

 

Anti-humanity is in charge. Just total assault.

 

Nothing’s being born. Only aborted. Only destroyed.

 

The evil’s so saturating. So heavy. Can’t you feel it?

I can feel it.

 

Evil lies. Evil steals the words you would want to say. Your own words.

 

Evil smothers. Evil dims. Evil blinds. No – evil makes you see everything as evil. It makes you see everything as lies.

We’re learning what it means not to be sick animals anymore. We’re learning to stop hating ourselves. And hating everything. We’re learning who we’d be if we weren’t contorted. And twisted. And turned in on ourselves. If we were, like, opened out – out of our self-devouring. If we were possessed by something good, not something evil. But it wouldn’t be possession. That’s the wrong word: possession.

 

Love: do you believe in that? Do you believe in a love that could just beam out of us? I believe in love.

Hatred’s only what love’s become on Earth. It’s only a twisting of love.

 

It’s as though some vast and subtle bomb has dropped. As if a soft explosion was blowing through everything. A good destruction – only without anything being destroyed. A ruination in goodness – but with nothing actually ruined.

Everything has been shifted, just a little. Moved sideways. Tilted, just a little. We no longer not live in the same world.

We have instincts. We know, somehow, what it is to live. Where to turn. Where to look.

 

Look upwards. We know that it’s from there it will come. From on high. From the most fucking high.

We know what to look towards. We know what to seek in the sky. We know the clouds will part one day.

 

Have mercy on us: isn’t that what we say, over and again? Have mercy. Help us. Lift us up.

 

We need something to face. We need something to See. Something to refresh the eyes.