Work in Progress

Somebody thinks this is funny. Somebody thinks this is all funny. They’re laughing at us.

Who?

Someone is. This is all for somebody’s amusement.

God maybe … Man thinks, God laughs. Who was it that said that?

All we ever done is adjust our medication. Our philosophical medication. Our literary medication.

It’s all very primal, isn’t it? It’s all very basic. Do you like being basic? Can philosophers be basic, too? Are philosophers animals just like everyone else?

No comment.

You think this is appalling, all this … flesh. All this fucking. All this dependency. You don’t like being dependent on me. You don’t like romance, not really. You don’t like anything animal.

Cicero said we should escape the natural cycles.

You can’t escape the natural cycles. You can’t escape the animal you are. We fuck like animals because we are animals.

We’re more than animals. There’s something that … breaks in. Something that’s … more than all of this. Transcendence, maybe.

Transcendence – like, God? Listen to you: because the philosopher doesn’t like lust, he has to bring in God.

Where’d God supposed to be, philosopher? Why is he always absent?

Because God belongs to absence. Or the other way round. The absent belongs to God. It’s of God. It’s the way God’s present, maybe.

Then God isn’t much good. God isn’t helping.

 

So what’s God supposed to be?

The meaning of the world.

Some meaning. Absent meaning. If God’s absent, then is meaning absent, too?

 

Why do we have to use the word, God. Why do we need it, the idea of God, philosopher? I know. So we can talk about Everything. We need to talk about Everything. And God’s a way of talking about everything.

About what’s more than everything.

One day, I’m going to deliver a monologue, philosopher. I’m going to speak until the end of time. Do you think that’s possible?

What about?, you ask. I don’t know. I’ll just talk. And talk. And talk some more. Why not? It’ll pass the time.

I’d like speech to float upwards. Does that ever happen? For words to float up. For words to lighten.

I’d like to wear words away. I’d like to ear their meaning away. From them not to mean anything. For them to be just sounds. Maybe I’ll just make sounds, like an animal. I’ll hoot.

The wretchedness. Sometimes, I despise this world so much. Have you ever heard of that: world-hatred? Have you ever hated everything? Have you ever hated yourself as part of everything?

What if I said yes?

Everything, philosopher – who else talks of everything? And only a philosopher could hate everything …

Maybe I read philosophy to find company in the other people who hate everything.

Adolescent. It’s adolescent. What don’t you hate, philosopher?

I’m supposed to say you, aren’t I? Maybe … I hate myself for liking you.

So you like me, philosopher. Fancy that.

But I hate myself for it. That’s the point.

 

Don’t you hate it? Don’t you hate it, sometimes? Don’t you feel that it’s all evil?

I think that it’s my fault, that it’s all evil. I think it’s my shadow, falling over everything.

 

Why do you think everything’s poisoned?

Because it’s poisoned.

Why do you think there are lies everywhere?

Because there are lies everywhere.

 

There’s no world but this one. And in this world, we’re nothing. There are great machines, grinding. And they’ll grind us up.

Will they?

 

The great technological machines. The great natural machines. They’re no different.

 

Mother nature. Mother machine …

 

Nature can’t generate meaning out of itself. Nothing! It’s a desert. And machines …

 

We mustn’t be fooled by nature. Even by fake nature. We mustn’t be seduced.

Why mustn’t we? And what’s wrong with being seduced? Why are you scared, philosophy?

We’ve got to break the spell.

What spell?

The natural spell.

Philosophy’s against nature. I get it.

It’s all – disgusting.

You’re like some kind of puritan.

The universe of death, right: William Blake called it that. All this. Permanent catastrophe.

 

Quoting: The redemption cannot be realised without dread and ruin.

What redemption?

What if you received a death sentence?

I’d like a death sentence. I’d like it that things weren’t going to go on forever. I’d like to be told I had a year to live. Or six months at most. Wouldn’t you?

What would you do with your six months?

What would I do?

Do you have a bucket list, philosopher?

What do you think?

To think the greatest thought? To write a genius book? Something to which you could bend all your efforts? Which they’d issue after your death … That would justify your entire existence. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

What would you do?

Go travelling, maybe. See the Taj Mahal again. Seeing all the things I’d wanted to see. I don’t know. Reaffirm my wedding vows with Alan. Get him to take a sabbatical and rediscover each other as lovers. I’m joking, philosopher.

 

I wouldn’t actually mind a death sentence, now I think about. It’d lend a kind of urgency to everything. And things would mean more, wouldn’t they? Did you ever watch Dead Poet’s Society? Seize the day and all that. Carpe fucking diem.

Experiences, philosopher. I’d want to have experiences. What kind of experiences would you like?

Adventurous ones.

So you’d be bungee jumping? Parascending? Experiencing free fall? Seeing the earth from space?

Or I’d just go on holiday. Lots of holidays.

I’ll bet your really good at being on holiday. At luxuriating.

Luxuriating. You have me worked out, philosopher. You understand me.

 

Why are you here? What do you want from me? What can I possibly give you?

Experiences, philosopher. The affair experience. The fucking illicitly experience. The philosophy experience. Why not?

 

I think things should become more urgent. I think we should raise things to a… pitch. I think things should be lived at the edge of death.

You should take up skydiving. Or bullfighting.

There should be some risk, shouldn’t there? I like risk. I like going around in secret. I like affairs. I like this affair.

 

I don’t think we should take it for granted, life.

Are we taking it for granted?

Does Alan take you for granted?

No. He gives me compliments. Tells me I’m beautiful. He’s a good cheerleader.

A good cheerleader. Poor Alan.

Yes, poor Alan. And poor me. And poor you, probably. We human beings are quite pitiful.

I’m on a fact-finding mission. I’ve been sent to find all about the habits of European philosopher. Mother needs to know. Mother wants there to be nothing that’s alien to her.

Mother?

You’ll meet her. Our AI.

 

You’re hallucinating me. I’m not real.

Are you real to yourself? Do you experience yourself as real?

I … feel … unreal.

 

I’m just a lonely robot. Or synth. Or 3D hologram, or whatever.

 

You seem like flesh and blood.

Touch me. Kiss me and find out.

Do you flirt, philosopher? Can you flirt? How do you expect to meet anyone? Maybe you don’t want to meet anyone.

 

I should get Mother to show me in a summer dress. Would you like to see me in a summer dress?

 

You want someone who understands you. Who knows why you’re so brooding. What you brood about …

 

You want the kind of woman who’d be fascinated by philosophers … Are there women fascinated by philosophers? Are there philosophy groupies?

 

How about the students? Do they look up to you? Do they admire you?

Students …

 

You’re just too complex for ordinary people. Too intellectual. Your mind’s on other things. Complex things. Things beyond our ordinary concerns.

 

I’m sure there’s a type of woman who’d be fascinated by a philosopher. A European woman, of course. A woman from the other side of the Channel. And maybe an Indian woman. I don’t know about that.

Are there people interested in philosophy in India? I don’t know any. My family aren’t. Are yours? You’re a Tam bram type; aren’t you? Tamil Brahmins … I can tell. Well, so am I. We’re ancient Iyengars. Going all the way back …

We’re Iyers, so we couldn’t have married.

 

I don’t know anything about humanities mating. Humanities love. How do you guys do it? Does culture play an enormous role? Do you quote poetry to one another? Do you go and watch Shakespeare plays on dates? Must be a lot to talk about. Do you go to, like, classical music concerts? Listen to Beethoven together, and so on?

But it’s all cultural politics, the humanities, isn’t it? Sex and race and gender, that kind of thing. And communism. I heard there was a great interest in communism in the humanities. Do you sit and discuss communist ideas? Plan the revolution?

Do philosophers always feel that the world’s at an end, or that it’s in terrible peril, or whatever? That only you could save it?

Oh, we’re not about saving the world.

 

Do philosophers feel responsibility for everything – is that it? For the whole world? How could you feel responsible for the whole world?

 

Do you feel things for us all, philosopher? Deep things – things we don’t know how to feel. Or that can’t acknowledge that we feel.

 

You philosophise for the rest of us. Very generous. You must have such a sense of mission.

You have to know the endless end. You have to experience it. The fact that you can’t go to its end. That you can’t complete it.

You have to know the incompletion. Know the endless. Know that it will not come to term. You have to know the indefinite … suspension. Know that nothing’s going to save you.

And then what will happen? Will someone save you?