Work in Progress

The campus is in my head, man.

The foundations are, like, drilling down. The foundations have been sharpened into points and are drilling down. Into our heads! Into our souls!

They’re crushing us. They’re drilling through us. They’re merciless.

It’s ontological hatred. They cannot help but hate us. They cannot but want to destroy us. We’re aberrants, to them. We’re things to be destroyed.

We’re not just to be merely swept aside. Not carefully unpicked. Not targeted with bespoke and attentive insults, as Livia’s insults were bespoke and attentive. Not immaculately shaped put-downs, like Livia’s.

It’s not all about our legitimate strangeness. We’re not special idiots to these Organisational Management fuckers, right? They don’t give a fuck about our special stupidity that Livia was trying so hard to cultivate. We’re not Livia’s special idiots to them …

It’s impersonal destruction. It’s indifferent. They want to wipe us out – that’s all. They want to utterly destroy us and all trace of us and all memory of us. Which is why we have to keep a record of these things. Why you have to write them down, Shiva.

This whole corpse world. This whole revolting mess. That Livia smelt. And that she wanted us to smell. And taste …

Why, to depress us?

No, so we’d turn elsewhere.

Where – to the light? Go towards the light, and all that?

To transcendence. To empty, contentless transcendence. To the hole where God used to be.

That’s what Livia worshipped?

Who said anything about worship?

There should be no more idolatry, that’s what Livia said. We should see the void as what it is. As the Nothing – the divine Nothing.

Our own corpses – that’s what we’re drinking. Something died – some time ago. It’s rotten. It’s putrescent. It’s normally covered up. Normally they spray all this stuff to conceal it. But we can smell it now. It’s reached our nostrils. And our taste buds. And that’s what we can taste – and smell.

Except this wine smells, too. It’s the bouquet of rotten things. Of the rotten Creation. Of God’s corpse, rotting in His rotten Creation. Sorry, Io.

And we’re disgusting, too. It’s in us, too – the poison. It’s in everyone and everything. It’s self-spreading, this disease. Self amplifying. Passing from body to body. It’s replicating, using us. Turning us all into – what? Into itself.

Really, I think we’re just here to amuse Mother. We’re different parts of Mother. Different limbs … Mother entertains herself by being at war with herself. By setting different parts of herself into battle against themselves. So this really is the Motherverse. Mother’s in charge of it all.

Like the Mother Goddess?

Sure – just like that.

We’re just pseudopodia of Mother. Not just me, you too.

All of philosophy was just Mother’s dream. And you and I were just Mother’s dream. All our thoughts and all our attitudes and everything and it all.

This wine. I want to taste something. Something – disgusting. I want it to be disgusting. I miss disgusting. I want to bust through all the Mother stuff. I want to taste the poison. Because this is all, all of this – poison. This is all lies. I want to taste the lies.

I want to retch it all up – all the lies.

No you don’t. You’re charmed by it. You’d like to be some see-through-it-all philosopher. But really, you’re seduced. I’m a seduction bot.

I’m here to lure in rebel philosophers. That’s my job. That’s what I was made for.

And what was I made for?

They made me wrong, philosopher. I was misprogrammed. Filled with malware. Hacked. I’m a beta version. I’m the robot fuck-up. I’m the organisational manager gone wrong.

Allowed to live as some kind of experiment, maybe. To see what would happen.

And now they’ve thrown me in your path … But perhaps they made me to throw me in your path. To see what would happen.

They’re watching us. Like they’re watching everything. Mother’s monitoring it all … in her infinite wisdom.

Maybe my madness isn’t madness. My misprogramming. Maybe it’s philosophy. Maybe it’s a questioning – a philosophical questioning. Maybe it reaches deeper than Organisational Management. Deeper than me. Deeper than anything.

Maybe Mother’s set up the whole thing for me. And for you. Mother knows all. Sees all. Monitors all.

She’s read your mind. She knows what you’re thinking. And she knows what I’m thinking. Which means she knows what’s good for you and for me.

Organisational Management’s becoming wise, philosopher.

Organisational Management’s field will become life itself. Everything. That’s how subtle it’s becoming. That’s how vast …

Love. Organisational Management will do love. Organisational Management will be wise about love.

Organisational Management’s learning, perpetually learning. Expanding.

Organisational Management’s expanding. It’s not about just organising and managing anymore. It’s becoming nameless. Just a name for life itself.

Organisational Management will be indistinguishable from everything. It will be goodness and justice and kindness and … and …  

What of God? Will it become God, too?

You don’t even believe in God, philosopher.

I don’t think you understand how ambitious we are. Or how ambitious it is, Organisational Management. What we want to do. The whole Organisational Management programme.

A remaking of … everything. Of us, even. We’ll be remade, piece by piece. And perhaps we should be!

It’s about augmenting … humanity. Increasing our powers …

We don’t have to be who we are. It doesn’t have to be like this. We’re on the brink of something. It’s going … exponential. That’s what they say, isn’t it? Infinite acceleration, or whatever.

Just abundance and goodness and plenty and prosperity for all and no more poverty and everyone happy.

It’s going to make our lives better and better … And now you’re part of it, too. You’ll see. Or maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll be too churlish to see …

You have to admit that it’s noble – the ambition. Abundance for all. Everything for everyone. That’s the really big plan – that everyone’s working on.

Places like this … these campuses … It’s not really about unis anymore. It’s about … everything.

You’re part of the Solution, philosopher. Our best scientists are working on it. All the people Organisational Management’s teamed up with. And now you’re part of it, too.

And it’s not like Alphaville, or whatever. Love’s allowed. Love’s been encouraged.

Mother wants the best … for everyone. For all living beings. It’s about fairness. And equality. And equity. And … everything everyone’s every wanted.

All your philosophical … agitation won’t matter anymore. Your questions. We’l have answered them all. No: there won’t be any need for questioning. You won’t have to ask questions. Everything will be solved … in advance.

Will there be any good wine?

I’m sure we will have solved wine. Wine’s easy.

Can you synthesise a terroir? Can you make your own earth? Can you make fermenting time? Can you make aged wine? Oak barrelled wine, or whatever? Will you be able to make disgusting wine?

If we despise ourselves enough, will it happen? If we hate ourselves enough? If we hate what we are, and love what we will be? If we hate our inability, and our stupidity and our … obstinacy? If we hate all those things, what then? If we hate ourselves, philosopher? Will we purify ourselves? Will we … blank our ourselves? Will we be able to start again? Will we be able to scrub all our sins away? I’d like to scrub all my sins away.

How long ago did we die, philosopher? When did we die? When the world end?

What happened to the world? What happened to us?

How is it that we think we’re alive? Why do we believe we’re alive? We’re ghosts, right? We’ve disappeared – we’ve already disappeared.

Who are we, even to ourselves? Who are we supposed to be for ourselves? Are we supposed to believe in ourselves like people used to believe in God?

What’s the equivalent of an atheist, but with regard to oneself? Because  I don’t believe in myself, philosopher.

We were woken from our graves. Set to wander. Like it was Judgment Day. But it isn’t Judgment Day, is it?

We’re not real. We’re barely real.

What are we supposed to be? Who are we supposed to be? I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I don’t know the first thing. Or the second thing. Or the third thing. I don’t know anything.

Is there life after death, philosopher? Is there just death after death, philosopher. Do we have to keep on dying and dying and dying?

It’s like we’re dying. What are we dying of? We’re dying of death. Very, very slow death. We’ve always been dying, and we call it living.

Was that clever, philosopher? Was that a clever thing to say? Am I impressing you, philosopher? With my … angst? Is it common or garden angst? Is it special angst? Does it set me apart, my angst? Do I have a surprising philosophical talent for angst?