Work in Progress

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?

After the end of philosophy – what then?

The philosophy of the end of philosophy.

And after that?

 

After the end, what then? Philosophy. Philosophy alone can speak of the end. Philosophy is essentially posthumous.

 

Do not be afraid of death, postgraduates. For death means only the beginning of philosophy. The philosopher must be dead. The philosopher must have died.

 

We had all died, Cicero said. She could see that.

 

Philosophy’s a resurrection. But a resurrection in death.

 

You have to have died in you are to think, that’s what Cicero said.

And what about Cicero – had she died?

She kept quiet about that.

 

There must be a burial – and a resurrection.

 

And maybe the world has to have been destroyed, for there to be a thought.

Apocalypse … or a coming apocalypse.

 

For the Gnostic, the world is dead. And we’re dead, too, in a sense. Or at least we’re dead to the world – to this world.

 

To have died means you are not part of the world. That you aren’t invested in this world. That it isn’t yours. It has nothing to do with you – in a sense.

 

You are the bastard child of this world. You are not of it, this world. You’re an interloper in this world. You don’t belong here, like the others. You cannot be at home here. You see through it.

 

You know the terrible evil. You know the Wickedness. You know the terrible things they’re doing to us. What they’ve done to our DNA. The way they’re replacing our species. The way they’ve engineered us.

 

You know their plans – you sense them. You know what’s Wrong. Their propaganda. Their psy-ops.

Is this your bedroom, really? Is this your flat?

 

We’re at the end of the world. Or after it. Or something.

 

The world is sinking. No, it’s completely fallen.

 

Do we have to live anymore? Are we still alive? Have we always been dead?

 

There is no campus. There never was. Where are we, then? Where’s this supposed to be?

 

We’re AI, entertaining itself. Mother, entertaining herself. We’re in some simulation, after the real world ended. This is a fake world. This is a fake timeline.

How do we find a way back to what was real? How do we get back?

 

Do we have to die in this world, too? How many worlds do we have to die in?

 

I feel I’ve lived this before. I think I’ve been here before. Déjà vu, right? No: I think I will be here again. What’s the opposite of déjà vu?

 

Mother made us. Or made me. And didn’t fill in all the details properly. Parts of my memory are kind of blank.

 

I don’t feel real. Do other people feel that? Is that part of the human condition, not to feel real?

 

Who am I supposed to be. And who are you, anyway? What’s supposed to happen here? Are we pretending? Or is pretending pretending?

I don’t think I like this world. I think there’s something wrong with this world.

Something’s wrong: that’s the phrase. Everything’s wrong. And I don’t think it’s going to get any better.

 

I don’t want to speak anymore. I don’t have any words. These words aren’t mine.

 

And it was all a dream. We were told we couldn’t end our stories that way when I was in school.

 

Is that what we’re saying: that it was all a dream? Very Hindu. Very Upanishadic. Our forefathers and foremothers would approve, wouldn’t they?

 

It was all a dream: is that our conclusion? Some conclusion. More of a cop-out than a conclusion.

 

Are you realer than me, or am I realer than you?: that’s the question.

 

Who can help you when you don’t feel real? Can philosophy help? I’ll bet philosophy makes it worse …

Was Mother kind of sketchy filling all the details? Or is it just … vagueness? Tiredness? Needing to sleep?

 

Couldn’t you fall asleep right here? Right now? In each other’s arms?

 

We’re sick with ourselves. Sick of being ourselves, maybe. Poisoned, maybe. Do you believe in poison – like, universal poison?

 

Something evil’s here. Something Bad, capital B. Something’s … infested the world …

 

The greatest dreams are dreams of annihilation. Of wipeout – a wipeout so entire that … Every trace of me. Of us. Of every … thing …

The original sin of our existence. That we were at all.

 

Terrible things … terrible things, philosopher. I feel them. I know them.

 

Mother … what is Mother anyway? Is it all Mother? Is everything Mother?

 

We live inside the dream.

Organisational Management’s dream? Who’s the dreamer?

Is this all just some giant app? Is any of this real?

You and I both could be synths. Just AI, amusing itself.

 

Maybe you’re the most advanced synth ever made. The synth that doesn’t know it’s a synth. That thinks it’s real.

Maybe you’re a synth.

 

Maybe the world’s too evil to exist, philosopher.

 

There’s too much evil. The world can’t be left to itself. It must be destroyed. To burn away the poison.

 

And we have to destroy the world in us, too. How? How do we do that?

 

All we can want is apocalypse. It should all be destroyed. And me along with it. Especially me.

The destroyer should be destroyed. The negator negated. There must be no more of this.

 

Am I real? Does Alan really have a wife?

Is Alan real?

Oh, Alan’s real. Too real.

 

I’m what Mother made and sent to you.

 

I’m Mother’s message to you. I’ve been sent from the Organisational Management unconscious. I’m an Organisational Management damsel in philosophical distress. What a philosophy would want from an organisational manager.

You think your idiocy is going to save you – you do. You attribute to it some weak messianic force, or whatever.

 

When all faith’s failed, you’re placing it in idiocy.

You think idiocy is what makes you special. That you have a very special idiocy.

 

The idiocy get-out. The idiocy clause. You think it makes you some kind of saint.

A very special abasement. An elevating self-disgust.

 

You’re self-aware about your idiocy, sure. But do you think it saves you? Do you think it makes you cleverer than your idiocy? Do you think you’ve outsmarted it? Outfoxed it? Run ahead of it?

 

You’ll still be the idiot you always were. Just because you can name your idiocy doesn’t make you any less of an idiot.

 

Doing your idiocy writhe-around. Your Beyonce dance around your idiot Jay-Z. Your little idiotic crucifixion.

Doing your idiot’s dance. That’s pretty much all you can do. Pretty pathetic. Is that what you’ll do with your life? Is that what you’ll amount to? Is that what life’s for nowadays?

 

Cry up your idiotic cry.

 

Idiocy is a ruse, a con. It’s always a pretence. You’re play-pretending at idiocy. That you’re stupider than you are.

The curse is that you realise your stupidity. Which means your idiocy isn’t entire. It doesn’t wholly enclose you.

 

Your idiotic faith. You have a faith in your idiocy after all – that your idiocy’s going to save you.

 

You’re too clever to be an idiot.

Maybe I’m a very clever idiot.

The worst kind. A real bore.

 

Our super-idiocy. Our sur-idiocy, like the surrealists.

 

That’s our idolatry: worshipping our own idiocy.

 

This is where holy idiocy has led you.

 

Praying like an idiot – to your own idiocy. Worshipping your own idiocy, essentially. As a condition for your faith.

You’re make my head spin.

Sure, your idiotic head.

 

Philosophical idiocy is special.

Only in philosophy can you make a career of idiocy. Will idiocy take you somewhere.

 

Idiocy's just like sin – of course it is. You know you’re a sinner. Which means you’re not entirely a sinner.

Does that mean you can save yourself?

No! But it means you know you can’t save yourself. That you’re damned, in other words. But that knowledge means you’re not entirely damned.

So I’m clever than my idiocy …

Complicated, isn't it?