Work in Progress

It tastes old, this wine. It tastes senescent. Like it’s the oldest wine that ever was. Like ashes. Like something burnt out, long ago.

It’s posthumous wine, for posthumous drinkers.


Are there anti-sommeliers, who know all the disgusting wines? All the tasting-notes of disgust?


Last wine, from the last harvest. From the last vines. From the last vineyard.


Tastes of rotting – no, this is beyond rotting. Its already rotted. It’s done with rotting. It’s on the other side of rotting.


Ruin wine, right? The thirteenth bottle. Livia’s final lesson. It has a big thirteen written on it. Were we supposed to drink all the wines in order?

We were supposed to drink this last, that’s all I know.


I can taste ashes. I taste earth. Thick, heavy earth. With a side order of ashes.


This wine can’t even be bothered to be disgusting. It’s given up being disgusting. It’s so disgusting that it’s reached the other side of disgusting.


It’s bubbling. It’s like a geyser. Is it going to erupt.


Ingest the poison. Drink it more deeply than anyone. Drink it into your depths.


The Abomination. That’s what you have to become. To know the world as abominable, and yourself as the abomination.


Drink, and the destruction of the world in you will be complete. Disgust will have reached its end.

Disgust will never reach its end.


World encompassing disgust – that’s what we’d like to reach. A hatred greater than the world. A disgust that is greater than the universe – the known universe, the unknown universe. All the dimensions.


Drink it down and maybe you’ll become the true Leader. The Master of Loathing. The Chief of Disgust. The emperor of Horror. The Deepest Gnostic.


The death of God, that’s what we’re tasting. God, rotting in the barrels. God’s rotting corpse: that’s the terroir. God’s festering. God’s fermenting, possibly. God’s decay.


What would an analytic philosopher make of disgusting wine? Would an analytic philosopher drink this? Of course not. Which is why we should drink it. Only the true European philosopher could drink it down.


The thirteenth bottle.

Are there any other permutations of disgust? Is there anything we’ve missed, about disgust? Are there any disgust-avenues that have gone unexplored? What further training in disgust might we need?


In wine is truth.

In wine is death.


Is this anti-wine, like anti matter? Dark wine, like dark matter?


At least we’re disgusted – think about that. At least we feel disgust. At least we’re appalled. At least we’re horrified.


A philosophy of disgust. A philosophy of retching.

The lessons of disgust. The lessons of gagging.


This wine is, like, the concentrated essence of everything.

Of everything that sucks.

Everything does suck.


It’s because we’re wrong that we see the wrong as wrong. It’s because we’re disgusting that we can see the world as disgusting.


The most stinking thing, out of all stinking things. The most festering thing, out of all the festering things …

The most decayed thing, out of all the decayed things. The most rancid thing, of all the rancid things.


Can we get drunk on what we hate?


Can we keep it down long enough to get drunk?

This is the last day, philosopher. The last day there ever will be. This is the day that will stretch forever. And you and I will escape into it.

Will we? And what will we do there?

I don’t know Just rest. Just stay still. We’ll live out our lives in this supernumerary day.


Because I might say something profound. Just by chance. I might wander into a zone of profundity. Something profound might say itself through me. Then you’d have to sit up and take notice, wouldn’t you?


I don’t know anything. I don’t know what day it is. I don’t know what happened yesterday or will happen tomorrow. I don’t know, philosopher.


We’re lost. We’ve been cast out of the succession of days. We’re not part of time, not anymore. Or we’ve found some other relation to time.


And what does eternity say? Does eternity have words? The word, eternity – is that eternity’s word?

The genius of Gnosticism is the idiot. The idiot is the Gnostic genius. It’s dialectical, or something. It’s about opposites and inversion …


We’re Livia’s idiots, right. Which is to say, Livia’s geniuses.

And you’re the figurehead, Shiva. You’re the one through which idiocy speaks. And never louder!


And true genius lies in drunken idiocy. That’s what the wine’s about. It’s supposed to help us reach genius in, like, anti-genius.

You should write a memoir, Helmut: our part in your downfall.


Maybe you were sent by Heideggerians from the future. To save us all.


Do you have your own Black Notebooks? I think you should. Your musings on why life is so unNazi. And those rootles cosmopolitans, eh?


Why did Livia hire you, that’s the question?

You have to have a bit of political dubiousness in a European philosophy department. Something political suspect and probably a bit racist.

Our lives, our lives – why does it never feel like we’re living? Why does it never feel like we’re alive? What is it we’ve been doing, instead of living?


We’ve lost, and don’t care that we’ve lost. We wanted to lose. And to lose this deeply. We wanted to be fucked over, and to be fucked over this profoundly.

The worst thing for you, philosopher, is that things would simply go on, with no apocalypse, no massive death event, or whatever. The worst thing is that day should simply follow day, as it undoubtedly will.

The worst thing is that we’re all all going to live into our nineties. Into our hundreds. Or maybe we’ll never die. Maybe they’ll reverse aging by then. And then what? We’ll live forever, philosopher. Which will put you out of a job.


What are we dying of? Are we even dying? Maybe we’ll live forever – and that’ll be our curse. That we’ll go on, whilst it all dies. That we’ll go on, even as we want to die. Like Valdemar. Like the Wandering Jew.


Don’t we all live too long these days? Don’t we go on too long, and in perfect sanity? Aren’t we entirely too sane, these days?


We’re Wrong. Our heads are Wrong. Our thinking is Wrong.

What about our philosophy – is it Wrong?

Our philosophy is right because it’s Wrong.

Our personality problems aren’t even real problems. We hold down jobs, don’t we? We function, sort of. We get by.

Because Livia employed us.


The danger is that we forget our origin story. That we forget our idiocy.

Livia never let us forget it.

But we need to continue to remember.

Our conversations are becoming more and more idle. You should despise that, philosopher. You should want me to say something profound. Our conversations have less and less actual content.

We’re wearing speech away. To nothing. Or something.

One day, we might just wander into truth. Just say things and they’ll be the truth. They’ll stand in the truth. They’ll bear the truth like light. One day, truth will happen to us, philosophy. Truth will befall us. Can that happen? Is that madness? One day, truth will be where we are. The question is: will we know it?

Who woke us up? Who woke us up in these lives? Why did we have to be born into these lives? Who chose these lives for us? What’s supposed to happen in these live – our lives? What are we supposed to do with them, our lives? What are they for – our lives?

Do you think you’re good at romance, philosopher? At making a woman feel special?


The philosopher does romance.

Fuck knows why I’m so intrigued by you. Fuck knows why I’m so interested.

You’re just an occasion to make me speak. You’re just what lets me speak into the void.

I can just say anything to you. I can just say these things. No one’s stopping me. And I don’t even know what I’m saying.


The world is gone – who wrote that? The world is gone. And we’re gone, philosopher. We’re G-O-N-E. We’ve fallen out of the world. The world doesn’t want us.


This doesn’t matter to you. It isn’t important. This is incidental stuff. Chat. Romance doesn’t matter to you. I don’t matter.

This is just time out. Time away from the Work, right? From the magnum opus. From what you were put on earth to do.

What, be a crap philosopher?

You don’t think you’re crap. You don’t believe that. Or you believe that if you work hard enough you won’t be crap forever.


Don’t you ever enough? Don’t you have enough of being you? Of being anything? Don’t you ever have enough?

It’s all worn out. it’s wearing out. no one believes in it. You don’t, and I don’t, and no one –


Who am I, anyway? Just some jumped up organisational manager …

I’ve done nothing with my life. I’m doing nothing with my life, and I’m not even depressed. I’m not even miserable – not really. I’m not going to change. Nothing’s going to happen to my life as a result of this. It’s all going to be the same It’s all going to be the usual thing.

And I want to laugh at it, philosopher. I’m laughing at it. But I’m not laughing – I’m not actually laughing.

It’s all show business. It’s all lies. We’re fed these lines. We’re supposed to say all – these – things. And I don’t want to say them, but I’m going to say them. And maybe … maybe no one wants to say them, but they’re going to say them.


We’re organising it all. We’re managing it.

We’re running the show. We’re writing the script. We’re managing it all. Behind the scenes, making sure it all goes smoothly, or whatever. We’re doing the programming. And I want to break out of the programming.

We’ve set the parameters for future humanity, or whatever. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. So controlled.


I want a holiday from being me. From being an organisational manager, anyway. An organisational manager wife, to organisational manager Alan.


Who the fuck am I supposed to be? I’m going to be an organisational manager forever. What’s my role? What am I supposed to be? Who am I, philosopher? Am I anything at all?

We’re just going to blow away. The wind at the coast is just going to blow us away. I don’t know how I am anymore. I don’t know what anything’s about anymore.

I don’t know how to live. I’m puzzled by it. I’m confounded by it. I don’t know how to organise my feelings. Or manage them. Very clever.

This … mood. This atmosphere, that hangs over everything. That’s just everywhere. That’s thick. That’s heavy. That you’re probably made of, philosopher.

What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong wth me, now? What’s wrong with everything?