Work in Progress

Because you have a more advanced soul than anyone else. Because you’re deeper. More profound. Because you feel things more profoundly. Is that it?


You’re not bothered by all the trivial things. You soul soars higher – is that it? You’re altogether better. You’re plain superior to the rest of us.

You’d like to be some terrible threat, but you’re not. Face it. Do you think the Mother would have let you in, if you weren’t?

How would it know?

Based on, like, all your past behaviour. On all the data she’s gathered about you.

I could surprise you. I could just … flip out.

Go on then: flip away.

Philosophy: fucking up the world, one student at a time.

Sure, we’ve been corrupting the young since ancient Athens. That’s what Socrates was killed for.

You teach them how to despise the world. How to cultivate their fucked-up-ness.

Legitimising all their adolescent bullshit. Making them think that being fucked up is part of the nature of being, or whatever.

Making them dwell in some perpetual bad mood.

Don’t think that I’m magnetised by your darkness, philosopher. Don’t think you’re drawing me into your abyss. I actually have an abyss of my own. I have my own … despair.


What’s the meaning of meaning, philosopher? Is that the kind of thing a philosopher asks? What’s it All About?


I’m discovering my philosophical side. Saying things that are probably terribly gauche in the humanities. Philosophically naïve …

You guys have been angsting away for decades. You’re experts at this. And I think I can just … talk into the air.


Am I fucked up, or just philosophical?

Do you feel what I feel? Do you feel it? Do you know it?

Something bigger than us. Something greater than us. Something horrible.

That’s poisoning us. And lying to us. And lying through us.


Are we damned, philosopher? What does that word mean: damned? Who would use a word like that: damned? Only a mad person. Or a religious person. All the real words have to come from religion now. They’re the only words that will suffice.


So evil – so, so evil. I sense it. I know it’s real. They have plans for us – terrible plans. They’ll destroy us. Worse.


What am I feeling, philosopher? What’s wrong with me? Do you feel it, too?

We made a mistake. Somewhere, there was a mistake. Do you feel that, philosopher? I’ve felt it for years.

That there’s something wrong with it all, with … everything. That’s what I feel sometimes. That it’s all wrong.

I just want to die, to die, to die. And float upwards into the sky. Is that what happens when you die?


This isn’t our world, is it? This isn’t even our dream. This isn’t our sleep.

This isn’t who we are. These aren’t our lies. These aren’t our lives. Someone dreamt this all up. We don’t belong here. To this. This isn’t our world. We’re not part of this.


We’re lost in someone’s dream. Not our dream. We’re lost in what someone wants for us. Someone wicked.

I’m confused, philosopher. But it’s not my confusion.


You lose yourself. Lose hold of yourself. Just disperse into the air. That’s what happens. Your attention just … floats away. Who you are. What you care about.

That’s what it’s like being me.


It’s just like … detachment I’m infinitely detached. That’s my problem. I’m not attached to anything. Not even Organisational Management. I don’t even believe in O.M. And if I don’t believe in O.M, what then?


It’s like I’m too vague. I’m not even tuned in, really. I don’t come into focus. Not even for myself. Except when I talk sometimes. Like now. But I never really talk like this.


I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know what I mean. I’m not saying what I mean. But what’s better than saying what I mean.

Is the world actually worth saving? Can you be bothered to save it? Aren’t there better things to do?

Like what? Like … hanging out, philosopher. Like fooling around. Like romance …

Do you think this night is going to add up to anything? Do you think we’ll remember it, tonight? Wandering these corridors? Do you think we’ll remember what we’re saying now – right now? This conversation?


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 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?


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.

Something important has happened. Something broke through. Something was allowed through.


Here, at the heart of the Organisational Management campus … everything begins again. We’ve been given a chance.


We have to whisper it. Whisper it, philosopher. Say forbidden things. Here, tonight. Whisper them to me …