What do you do in Mallorca?
I enjoy the sun. I read … thrillers. Or detective books. Imagine that, philosopher. Sit by the pool – we actually have a pool. Imagine that! A house with a pool. I have a friend over there. A gay friend. My gay best Mallorca friend. I think he’d like you. My husband doesn’t really get him at all, though he’d like to. My husband’s not really metrosexual, like you. He’s more traditionally male. He’s a specimen of northern manhood.
I’m not afraid of death, philosopher. There are worse things than death. Should I be afraid … for my immortal soul? For karmic retribution?
Should I try and be good. Should I, philosopher? Do I convince you, philosopher? What kind of person am I, philosopher?
I should be judged. Someone should sit in judgement upon me. I don’t deserve … this. That’s what I‘m sure of.
Come on, we know what goodness is. We know the good people are. We know how we’re supposed to live.
There’s some other way to live, isn’t there? We don’t have to be who we are. We don’t have to be this. There’s another life. Another way of living our lives. Isn’t there?
It’s like being … spacewalkers. Like astronauts on a spacewalk. It’s like total zero-G.
Do you think it’s possible to fall out of life, philosopher? Is that what’s happening to me? To us?
Where is this going? I’ll tell you: nowhere. But I like nowhere. I like wherever it is we are, or are not. What’s happening? I’ll tell you: nothing. I like nothing. I like whatever it is happening, or isn’t happening.
We’re between times. Between seasons. It’s between day and night.
It’s like we’ve been dealt some vast, soft blow. A kind blow. Like we’ve been knocked out, but gently. Like we’ve been concussed. Have we been concussed, philosopher?
It’s like we’ve been crushed, but gently. It’s like we’ve been run over, but softly.
It’s like we’re dazed. Like we’ve been the victim of some terrible accident. Yet we’re unscathed. Yet we’re fine. Yet nothing happened.
It’s like we’re the victims of some hit and run. Like we’ve been destroyed, or half destroyed, or nearly destroyed. But we’re okay. We’re just fine.
You want something new.
I do want something new. And you’re one of the new things I want, philosopher. A walking, talking sex toy.
Well, I could have picked a better sex toy, couldn’t I? I could have picked someone who could get it up.
There are various positions I like, philosophy. That you’re incapable of. Maybe I’d like to fuck in the shower, did you ever think of that? See, I can say the word fuck. There aren’t many women who can say the word, fuck. But they’re the same kind of women who are sexually demanding.
Oh come now, I didn’t mean to humiliate you. I didn’t mean to insult your virility. Or maybe I did …
See, I’m picking at you, aren’t I? She’s bitch – that’s what you’re thinking. She’s fucking toxic. And you’d be right. I’m thinking it, too. Maybe you aren’t enough of an adversary for me. Maybe you don’t stand up to me enough. What do you think?
You don’t want to play my abasement games. Maybe they’re what turn me on: my abasement games. My cruelty – sexual cruelty. My cruelty about sex. Except I don’t think they do turn me on. I think I play them to stop myself being turned on. To push away my lover. Am I pushing you away, philosopher?
Do you think it’s chance that’s thrown us together like this, philosopher? Has fate had a hand in it?
What are we doing with our lives? Are we being reckless with our lives? Are we spoiling them, our lives? But we’re free to do that, aren’t we? We’re free to do exactly as we please. That’s the thing. That’s the problem with too much freedom. I mean, what should we be doing with it? Something meaningful, I’m sure. But what is meaningful? Who can tell?
This deception can’t be good for anyone, can it? It can’t be good for us. Do you ever wonder what it’s doing to us? We’re demons. Or I am. I’ve become demonic.
And I don’t mind, that’s the thing. Which makes me doubly demonic.
Did I used to have a conscience? Maybe. But then I got so booored … All kinds of things are justified when you’re bored, aren’t they? And marriage gets very very dull.
Corruption comes with age. Were we better when you were young, philosopher? More idealistic, maybe? More delightfully open to the world? Were we full of joy, back then, when we were eighteen. When we hadn’t yet worked things out?
Because now we’re old … and cynical … and corrupted. Now we know the wheels that turn in the night. Now we know the engines that grind and grind.
I’ve got it all. A very nice roof over my head. And a house in Mallorca. To think: I have a house in Mallorca. How did that happen?
I’ve done well, haven’t I? I’ve made good.
The agony of no agony. The agony of banality. Is there such a thing? The agony of my husband snoozing after dinner. The agony of conversations about work. Which aren’t even an agony.
The everyday, philosopher. I can’t bear the everyday. I can’t bear the banality. Spare me from the banality.
Am I like some bored housewife? A bored housewife, who happens to work? Whose life isn’t fulfilling enough? Who wants a little extra thrill? And you’re my thrill …
Of all the crimes I could commit, it isn’t the most serious, is it?
I’m pleasing myself. And perhaps I’m pleasing you.
After all, this doesn’t hurt anyone. Does it?
How about us? Does it hurt us? Is it corrupting us? We’ve become liars. Dissemblers. We won’t tell the whole truth. Well, I say ‘we’, but I mean ‘I’.
Because you’re okay. You’re just the occasion of adultery. But then you have meetings with him, don’t you, my husband. My provider. You’re lying to him, implicitly …
God … what webs we weave. How deeply we’re compromised. Was life ever simple? Should it be that: just simple? Just easy? Just streamlined? Just heading in the right direction?
A soap opera staple. A TV drama staple. All the ingredients for a melodrama. And a crappy melodrama, at that. It’s bound to come out. It’s bound to lead to some … argy-bargy.
Tuesday drinking.
Pissed for nothing. What are we supposed to do with our pissedness? What’s it for? I mean, being pissed should be about something. It should be part of some Occasion. But there is no Occasion. There’s just us, drinking without meaning.
Drinking because of the lack of meaning.
Tuesday drinking.
Pissed and then what? Pissed, and then, just another day. Where’s it going to lead? What’s its for?
Pissed on a weeknight. Pissed for no particular occasion. In honour of nothing in particular.
Pointlessly pissed. Pointlessly up for something, when nothing’s actually happening.
Tuesday drinking.
What kind of day is Tuesday, to be pissed? Friday’s one thing. Saturday’s understandable. But weekday drinking is for losers …
Tuesday drinking.
We’re out of step with the world. We’re not part of anything. No one else is even pissed.
Tuesday drinking.
The great fucking futility. The great fucking pissed-for-nothing.
Tuesday drinking.
There’s a protocol to drinking. There’s a time for drinking. And that time’s the weekend. Not the fucking midweek.
What day do you call this? What time do you call this? What’s this supposed to be about?
Tuesday drinking.
Mark the Great Futility by drinking to the Great Futility. Mark the Great Nothing by toasting the Great Nothing.
Tuesday drinking.
Not even waiting for the weekend. Not even saving yourself for the weekend.
This is so … directionless. This is so pointless. I mean, it’s not as if you can write philosophy when you’re pissed.
Tuesday drinking.
The way I see it: this could be the night that changes everything. This could be the great Swerve. This could be another direction of the world. Everything could change tonight, this weekday night.
This is a night that can get lost. This is the night where we could be Found. Where we could Make Our Way. To where? From where? Where’s it going to go?
Tuesday drinking.
The room, spinning round and round. Drunk because it’s Tuesday. Drunk because it’s irredeemably Tuesday. Drunk because this night isn’t the Greater Night. Because this sky isn’t the Greater Sky. Drunk because this is Tuesday night. And nothing other than Tuesday night.
Tuesday drinking.
Drunk because the world hasn’t ended yet. Because it hasn’t had the decency to come to an end. To finish itself the fuck off.
Tuesday drinking.
Because it’s too early in the week. Because there’s so much of the week to go.
We’ll get pissed next Tuesday too, probably. Just as we were pissed last Tuesday.
Tuesday drinking.
We drink because of Time, because there’s too much Time. We drinking because of the Night, because there’s too much Night. We drink because we’re dead, having never lived.
Tuesday drinking.
We drink because we’re not yet born. Because we’ve not yet arrived.
Because we’re the most obscure people in the world. Because we’re the most Insignificant people. Because we’re the no ones. And the lost ones. And the abandoned ones.
Tuesday drinking.
We drink because no one will remember us. No one will even forget us. Because there’s nothing to remember, not really. And what is there to forget?
Tuesday drinking.
Mourning drinking. Grief drinking. Drinking for Nothing.
Cicero’s notebooks:
Transcendentally discontent. Transcendental hatred – for this life. For the conditions of this life.
Transcendental world-disgust. Transcendental life-disgust. Transcendental horror at it all. The beginning of philosophy.
Philosophy’s gone wrong inside you. Philosophy’s festering.
There’s a … horrific vision. And that’s important. Creation stripped to the bone. Naked facticity.
God isn’t revealed through the world. God and the world: completely antagonistic.
End times? Come and gone. This is the afterlife. Or the afterdeath.
Nihilize the world. The whole creaturely realm. There’s a use for disenchantment.
What creatureliness shows us. The worst the world, the greater the chance for redemption.
Everything has to sink to the lowest level. The world has to be shown as being perfect guilty, perfectly culpable (Benjamin). As being worthy only of being destroyed (Scholem). The redemption needs dread and ruin.
‘When you have sunk to the lowest level, at that time I will redeem you’.
Natural beauty: the problem. Do not be seduced by the sea or the sunset. Unless we can see natural beauty as sheer horror. See the world as a meaningless void. The void of God that’s what we have to know. The world as the void of God.
The whole of creation has to be allowed to fall into the night. The deepest nihilistic fall of the world: that’s what we need to know.
God’s withdrawal from the world has to be complete. And that will be revelation: a new form of revelation.
A new faith … which is made from doubt and disbelief. Which creates itself out of nothing – the divine nothing. God has to spring anew from his nothingness.
We have to reach perfect hopelessness. De profundis.
Complete nihilism. Perfect it.
The perfect nihilist can see that the world lacks nothing. That it’s self-enclosed. Integral. Full as it is. But what it lacks is nothing. What it lacks … is what it’s not.
We’re starting to drink and we will not cease our drinking. We’re starting – just starting – and this time it will never end.
We’ll drink. We’ll drink hard. We’ll drink into the night. And beyond the night! We’ll drink our way through the night, and through the morning. And maybe afternoon, as well.
We’ll drink until the end – we’ll push on until the end of the night. And beyond! And beyond it!
We’ll break through the night. We’ll shatter the night. We’ll tear the sky wide. We’ll rip open the sky.
Because this night is not enough for us. The sky is not enough. It’s sealed against us, and we’ll don’t want it to be sealed. It’s closed against us, and we don’t want it closed. We’ll slice it open. We’ll spill its guts. The guts of the sky! The innards of the sky!
In a sense, we haven’t begun to drink. We haven’t found our way to the Great Drinking. We haven’t found our way to the plateau, not yet. We haven’t ascended in our drinking, climbed upwards. We haven’t risen in our drinking. The stars don’t flash above us, not yet. The sky doesn’t wheel around us.
The eternal night – that’s where we drink. The night that never ends. The night, where the sun never rises. Where eternal night simply journeys into itself. Presses into itself. Seems to collapse, into itself.
The night, lost in itself. Wandering in itself. The night that is its own labyrinth. The night, busy with itself, disappeared into itself.
That’s the night we drink beneath. That’s the night we toast. That’s the night up to which our crises rise. And our prayers – our drunken prayers.
To drink until we pass out. Until we lie, unconscious. We don’t need to be conscious. We give up our consciousness. It doesn’t matter to us anymore. We simply want – what do we want? To lose our light.
Drinking deeper. Drinking all the way down. Drinking into the Urgrund and the Abgrund. Drinking into the abyss, and deeper than the abyss. Drinking-falling into Nothing. Into the Nothing above and the Nothing below. Drinking to that.
There’s no saving us. There’s no saving ourselves. We’re lost. Ruined. We’re abandoned. We’re only deepening our dereliction. We’re only furthering our loss of all true things.
This is a funeral. A permanent funeral. Of our hopes. No – this is a wake for our hopes. This is a wake for the ruination of our hopes. We’re staying up all night to mourn the ruination of our hopes.
We’re all guilty, right? Guilty – dreadfully so. Abysmally so. Ruinously so. We’re all guilty …
Is a judgement coming soon? A terrible judgement? A looming judgement? Don’t we hope so? Isn’t that what we want?
A judgement … that would declare us to have been in the wrong. To have lived in the wrong. A judgement that would tell us that we were wrong. That we’ve done unspeakable things. That our lives are full of unspeakable things. That we’re guilty with the guilt of everyone. With the guilt of everything …
Our cry for help. Our S.O.S. Our appeal. What is it that we want? More ruin More destruction. A final ruination. A final destruction. What do we need?
An island. A separate place. Where we can just live in peace as human beings. In simplicity. That’s what we need. And isn’t this night an island? Isn’t this pub?
We’re looking for time. We’re drinking for time. For a reprieve. We want a gap in the world being the world. We’re looking for a cessation of the world’s endless worlding. A holiday, a Sabbath, a minute’s peace: isn’t that what we’re seeking?
We’re the last drunks in the place. The last drunks. They’ve turned the lights on … they want to get rid of us. Of course they do! The bar staff want to go home. They have lives! They want to clear up and get back! They want to wipe down the tables! They want to lock the great door!
We’ve outstayed our welcome, as we always outstay our welcome. We’re remained too long, as we always remain too long. Their nights are long enough as they are, God knows. Having to deal with drunks like us! Having to humour drunks like us!
Drinking is utopian. We drink for utopia – to reach utopia.
We drink because there are things we cannot bear to think. We want there to be a limit to our thinking.
Words fail us. We don’t want words. We’re sloughing off all the words.
We’re trying to live, God help us. With the aid of alcohol. We depend too much on alcohol, of course we do! It isn’t good for us, all this alcohol! But we need a route out of ourselves. We need a way out, a royal route. We can’t get there all by ourselves. We can’t get there sober.
We disappoint ourselves, without alcohol. We bore ourselves. We compromise. We’re not the people we should be. We don’t rise. We don’t look upwards. We don’t aspire. God knows!
We’re limited people, sober. But drunk …Drunk, or half drunk … We’re no longer means-ends minded. We’re no longer project-oriented. We’re no longer goal-driven.
There’s a larger Plan, which is no Plan. A larger project, which is no project. A larger Means, without end.
We’re drinking ourselves to death – no doubt. But what other choice is there other than drink ourselves to death? It’s a creative suicide. It’s our own way of dying, which is to say, living.
All we do is stare at the horizon from which doom’s going to come. Waiting for the doom. As if nothing else were important.
Nothing else is important. There’s nothing that gives any meaning to our lives. That’s where all the meaning of our lives come from: the disastrous future. The meaning of our lives comes from non-meaning. Comes from the end.
Serious drinking. Nothing frivolous here. A bottle of spirits. That we have to finish. It’s our duty to see where it leads. To see where it takes us.
Because there’s somewhere we have to be taken. We have to get out of ourselves. Our of our heads. Our heads are confining us. They’re turning us inwards. Whereas drink turns us outward …
A disastrous day! At least there’s drink. At least there’s some opening. At least we can open the door of the day. And leave it behind.
At least drinking brings us together.
We’ve left the day behind. Forget the day! Forget what happened! Don’t look back. We’re drinking into the evening. We’re drinking into the night. We have the future before us. The great darkness. The great night.
We’ll ruin ourselves for work tomorrow. We’ll wreck ourselves for intelligent thought in the morning. We’ll deliberate sabotage all our philosophical acumen. Who needs it: philosophical acumen? Where has it got us: philosophical acumen?
We destroy ourselves every night! We undo our work! We drink to attain the condition of thoughtlessness! Oblivion! Drinking isn’t drinking unless it leads to unconsciousness.
Dreaming of some magnificent bender of our lives. Some infinite bender, from which we’d never return. Some magnificent binge of drinking. Drinking from here to infinity. Beginning now and ending … when? Never ending! Never stopping!
There is no tomorrow. Let’s bury tomorrow. There’s only today. There’s only the infinite: today. There’s only today, going on forever, lasting forever. There’s only eternity, this eternity. There’s only nowhere.
Are we drinking too much? There’s only drinking too much. That’s the only acceptable way of drinking.
Those Organisational Management fuckers. Do you think they know how to drink? They can do everything but drink. Because drinking’s not about what you can do. It doesn’t concern what you can do.
Drinking’s a giving up. A throwing in of the towel. An admission of defeat. You have to have been terribly defeated, if you’re going to drink.
Work in Progress 