Work in Progress

Cicero loved our disgust. The quality of it. And our self disgust.

So she did.

 

She loved our self-disgust. She harvested it. Lived off it, like a succubus.

She thought it could be turned in another direction. Towards something more worthwhile.

 

Cicero’s giving us jobs was only the condition of our coming into our idiocy. Of truly inheriting our idiocy.

We didn’t know it yet, but our jobs would hone our idiocy. Direct it.

 

Cicero’s giving us jobs only have free play to our impostor’s syndrome. It would be the making of us … through the unmaking of us.

 

Our idiocy versus the world: that wasn’t enough for Cicero. But versus ourselves. Turned upon ourselves …

We were idiots who didn’t want to be idiots. Self-aware idiots who wanted done with self-awareness.

Idiocy by itself was nothing. But self-consciousness about our idiocy …

We won’t stop dying. Not now. Not ever. We’re immortal – but immortal in dying.

 

The world will not stop ending. Why is that?

 

It’s like we’re after time – after everything. The world might has well have ended.

It’s like we’re after time – after everything. Does that make sense to you? Just you and I and eternity, philosopher.

These aren’t my words … that’s what it feels like. I’m not saying these things. It’s my distance saying them. It’s the faraway that’s speaking. And it’s speaking of being faraway.

 

If I had a baby, would I be feel so faraway? If I had a child? Would that bring me into reality? Would I be fully real then? Would I actually live in the world? Maybe I wouldn’t be faraway anymore.

You should set fire to your own library – like the Library of Alexandria. I should. You should burn it all down, like a gypsy caravan. All your treasures. Your ark. Like a Viking funeral.

Let it burn up. Your whole flat. All your dead books. And yourself, too. That’s how you’d complete your idiocy. Some sacrifice to … whatever. Your God of idiocy.

I hate being subject to … desires. I hate being at the mercy of my body. Even if I’m nothing but a body. I hate desire. I hate these desires. I disgust myself. I’m disgust and nothing more. I’m saturated with disgust.

I’m disgust and nothing else. There’s nothing leftover. I’m such an idiot. I’m an idiot in desire. I’m an idiot in lust.

And in love? What about love, philosopher? Who are you in love?

I’m an idiot in everything.

 

I’m an idiot in everything, but I haven’t reached the limit of my idiocy, yet. The end of my idiocy. There’s still further to do. I need to be more disgusted. More appalled.

And then what?

Then I’ll have broken my ties with all this. With the world. With everything.

Is that what you want to do – cut your ties?

Then I won’t be subject to this. I won’t have to feel these things.

Like some kind of Zen Buddhist? Will you work our way to enlightenment? Is this a Nirvana thing? Like anti-Zen?

 

I’m meant to be the greatest idiot who’s ever lived. That’s my task. That’s what I’m about.

I’m sure you’re using the word, idiot in a way no one else does. You’re making it mean something profound. Like some kind of backhanded compliment to yourself. It’s a way of saying that you’re really really clever. That you’re part of some elect. That’s the philosophical trick, isn’t it?

Socrates said that he knew he knew nothing.

Exactly. He was still Socrates.

 

I crown you king of the idiots, philosopher. 

What are you thinking?

Whether to throw myself off the balcony.

How … histrionic. So you’re not greeting the Organisational Management merger with any degree of pleasure.

It’s not a merger. Organisational Management are swallowing us up.

It won’t be that bad, you know. You might quite like it.

 

Is it hard talking to a normal person?  Must be very difficult.

 

I’m too depressed for small talk.

I’ll have to rustle up some big talk. Am I being too trivial?

 

Philosophical despair isn’t like actual despair, is it? You don’t actually look depressed. You can go about life completely unchanged and be convincing.

Despair isn’t depression.

Oh, it wouldn’t be anything as workaday as depression. Common people have depression, but philosophers …

 

How low do you go? Organisational managers, I mean.

Not low enough, I’m sure.

Do you know what you’ve brought onto your campus? It’s like inviting in vampires. They have to have your permission to cross the threshold. Well, you invited us. we’re across the threshold now.

Do you think we’re afraid of you? What can you do?

Fill you full of nihilism. It’s in our bite … Our nihilism bite.

I don’t believe you. What is nihilism, anyway?

Not believing in anything.

So you’re dangerous, philosopher. You’re a bad boy. Imagine that. A bad boy in the Organisational Management building. A badass intellectual. Thinking badass thoughts.

 

You’ve already been drinking – I can tell.

I have been drinking. Very, very bad wine.

Do you want to drink some more? Is this good wine? Semi-good Organisational Management wine?

I’m not used to that.

 

And you’re cold. You’re, like, radiating cold. I didn’t think that was possible.

I nearly died of exposure. We all did.

Why didn’t you get the shuttle bus. It’s our pride and joy, the automatic shuttle bus.

We preferred the scenic route. We wanted to acclimatise ourselves. We wanted to know what we’re up against.

Something’s wrong. Those words, echoing out. Something’s – wrong. But what’s wrong. What is it?

Everything’s wrong. It’s all wrong. And it will be wrong until … the End. And the End will make it right. The apocalypse. It will come right at the last moment. Because everyone will know that it’s about to end.

 

Something’s wrong, philosopher. You know more about it than I do. You feel more. But I feel it, too. Something’s wrong, and it’s been wrong for a while.

 

Something’s wrong. Everything’s wrong. And part of its wrongness is that no one sees the wrongness.

 

Something’s wrong. No – everything’s wrong. It’s all wrong.

All this culture. These posters. This framed art. These blu-rays. These CDs … I’ve barely ever seen a CD before.

 

Like some capsule. Looks like solitary confinement to me.

 

I’m glad I’m even allowed in. Am I allowed in? Are you regretting inviting me? Am I disturbing your solitude?

 

I pity the woman who ends up with you. I pity her. Unless she’s another philosopher. Unless she has a capsule of her own.

 

Do you think you can hold the barbarism at bay? You think you can stay in and party like it’s 1955, or whatever?

 

The ground zero of your intellectual life. Your thought base. Your hide-out camp. Your fortress of studious solitude. Your favourite island.

 

You don’t want me here, do you? How do I fit in? What am I disturbing? Your European dreams. Your arthouse dreams.

Like these things matter anymore. Your personal pantheon. And these gold framed reproductions.

Who are you kidding?

 

It’s like in fairy tales, where the ogre buries his heart in a chest at the bottom of a lake. This is where you’ve buried your heart. Your would-be heart …

 

But I don’t believe it’s real. It’s only as if you loved these things. As if you loved old Europe. As if they meant something. As if, as if …

Because without this ballast, you’d float away, wouldn’t you? Who would you be then? Who would you be, without philosophy? Just an ordinary Joe.

Imagine that. No sage. No mage. No intellectual glamour. Is there such a thing as intellectual glamour anymore?

 

See, if you lived on the continent, in Paris or something, then you’d make sense. But you don’t make sense, do you?

Which is why you retreat here. Which is why you cower here. From an indifferent world.

 

This is where you come to restore your strength. For European-culture power-ups.

This is your life raft. As though European culture could save you.

The old European names, like incantations. Their artwork on the walls …

 

Your sanctum. Your holy of holies.

Love you, love your room, is that how it works? Love you, love your taste. Love these relics. These touchstones.

You’re like a dresser crab, making your shell out of all this stuff you’ve found. Must have taken a lot of time – and money.

 

Culture, philosopher … Your favourite things … like the Julie Andrews song. When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when you’re feeling sad. You simply remember Albert Ayler and Sun Ra and so on. And then you don’t feel so bad …

 

The sanctum of the humanities. The human treasures of European civilization.

We Business Studies types just have James Bond Blu-ray collections and a Netflix subscription. That does us …

 

A Europe of the mind.

So much to meet the eye. So many delights. The eye’s refreshed. The ear’s refreshed.

 

Alan has an interest in classic design. I like swinging London stuff. Jean Shrimpton and so on. We haven’t got your European panache.

 

Really, Alan doesn’t have any taste, coming from Middlesborough. He leaves it up to me. But I don’t have any taste either.

 

All your cultural capital. I’ll bet you could hold forth at tedious length on each and every thing here. I’m sure you could bore me to death, philosopher.

 

You’re really in denial, philosopher. No one cares about this stuff. No one gives a fuck. You don’t need to own things. To collect things. Very anal. It’s all streamed now. We’re streaming people …

 

I take Alan to design museums in London. I drag him around. That’s how I cultivate myself.

 

Of course, in the future, Mother will be able to make whatever you want. The internet of things, philosophy. I’ll be able to just 3D-print your favourite Terence Conran stuff.

 

You’re the last of something, philosopher. The last of Europe. The last of imaginary Europe.

I don’t know whether anything reaches me. It’s like I’m far away from everything. Too far away to be anything. I don’t know how to express it.

Nothing’s mine, philosopher. My life isn’t mine. Our house in Gosforth. Our house in Mallorca. My rental properties – I have those, I know. I own those. Quite lucrative. I have a regular portfolio. They’re not mine.

You see, I should be a business woman. I know how to make money. Butt hat doesn’t matter.

Nothing touches me. Nothing reaches me. Even you. All you’re doing is help me express this … absence. Allowing me to say these things.