Lars Iyer - Wittgenstein Jr

WITTGENSTEIN: That’s better. Now, off you go and lose your souls.

Bubble machine and bouncy castle …

Girls in ball gowns, leaping in their tights. Rahs in dinner jackets, jumping in their socks.

And whooping. Everybody whooping. It’s quite the new thing, whooping.

This would be the right moment for a campus massacre , we agree.

• • •

Cocaine. Tequila. More cocaine. More tequila. Our noses tingle. Our throats are hoarse from shouting. Our heads are dizzy …

The entertainment arrives: children’s TV presenters, reality TV stars. Are we all having a good time tonight? Have we all been good boys and girls? Have we written our lists for Santa? Have we gobbled up all the chocolates in our advent calendars?

More cocaine and tequila, to numb the pain. Have we all taken quite enough drugs and alcohol?

Doyle’s come as Bad Santa, and Mulberry, as his demonic elf, with a sack full of laughing gas balloons. We whoop ourselves crazy …

• • •

The park, 3.00 AM. Titmuss, lying in the flowers, chanting quietly. Guthrie, in Doyle’s Santa hat, kebab grease around his mouth. Ede and I on the bench, sharing a bottle of vodka.

EDE: He likes you.

ME: Who?

EDE: Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein likes you.

ME: What do you mean, likes me ?

EDE: I mean likes you, you idiot. It’s obvious.

ME: Fuck off. No way.

EDE: It’s your boyish charm. Your innocence. You really are an innocent, Peters.

ME: There’s no way he likes me.

EDE (sagely, draining the last of the vodka): That’s why he likes you, Peters: because you say things like that.

In my dream, snow falls on Wittgenstein’s sleeping body. Snow covers him, like a crisp white bedroom sheet. But it covers his shoulders and his arms and his head, too.

In my dream, he is stirring, his eyes are opening. His head falls to one side. He’s facing— me .

In my dream, his eyes plead. His mouth moves, but I cannot hear what he says.

In my dream, I wipe the snow from his brow. I wipe it from his body.

In my dream, I kneel at his side, like a supplicant.

King Street, then Park Street. Ede and I, a bottle of gin in each pocket.

We’ve outgrown this place, we agree. We’re sick of it. We’ve explored the lanes, we’ve walked the courtyards. We’ve seen behind the high walls and the iron doors.

How many times have we drunk ourselves silly in the Maypole ? How many times have we scavenged for alcohol after closing time? How many times have we raided the communal kitchens last thing at night? How many times have we pissed in our sinks? How many times have we stepped over vomit? How many times have we done an all-night essay blitz, high on energy drinks and Pro Plus tablets?

We’re bored. Bored of study. Bored of preparing for life. Bored of waiting for life to begin.

ME: There’s one thing for sure — I’m not taking a fucking gap year!

EDE: Fuck gap years! Reality! That’s what we need! We need to know what we’re up against!

The high street. Office workers out for their Christmas parties. Women in round-toed high heels and maxi dresses and ankle bracelets. Men in Fred Perry shirts …

EDE: That’s you next year, Peters — Fred Perry shirt, and a look of damnation …

We imagine my office-job future. Office rivalries. Office flirtations. Conversations about cars. And football. And last night’s TV. Watching the clock. Wandering the corridors. Cold-calling clients on a Saturday morning. Telemarketing on a Sunday night. Pulling all-nighters to impress the boss. Out on the town with people I can’t stand. Saving up for a starter house in an exurb. Hanging myself in the company toilets.

EDE: Not to worry, Peters. It won’t be much better for me …

He’s going to be one of the bad Edes, Ede says. These are probably his last weeks of lucidity. He’s going to go the way of Guthrie. The way of Scroggins. Drunk every night by cocktail hour. Then rehab. Then interventions. Then 360s . Then suicide attempts. Then electroshock treatment. Then, finally, a shotgun to the head.

EDE (at the top of his voice): Fuck this!

ME (louder): FUCK THIS!

Only one more term to go. Only one more. The world is rushing to meet us. The world is crowding our vision. The world is flaming towards us, like a comet. When will it strike? When will it burst across our skies?

Terrible, decisive things are about to happen. Knives are glittering in the darkness. Teeth are glittering in the darkness. The night, the whole night, is opening wide.

We’re so vulnerable! So exposed! We’re drowning in possibility. In potential.

We’re lost in time. Lost to time. We’re abandoned to the wilds of time. Wandering in time’s night …

Last class before the Christmas break. Wittgenstein brings us Lebkuchen and wine.

He talks softly, as he always does. His intent, after all, is so utterly at odds with loudness. But today, his voice drops almost to a whisper.

An old Jewish legend tells that there are nine righteous people alive in the world at any moment, Wittgenstein says — but he likes to imagine there are nine righteous thinkers —thinkers who will know what it means for philosophy to have ended.

Nine righteous thinkers, who will know the burden that has been lifted … Nine last seers, who will feel the relief of the end, who will know themselves to have been unburdened from thinking and from the task of thinking …

Nine last logicians, who will be free to walk out beneath the summer sun … Nine last visionaries, who will emerge, blinking, from their thinking-shacks and thought-burrows … Nine righteous ones, who will open their eyes at last, who will breathe the air to the bottom of their lungs …

Nine righteous philosophers, who will laugh at last — who will really laugh, like children … Nine righteous thinkers, who only now will step into life, into the fullness of life.

A last walk on the Backs. Wittgenstein ahead, in deep discussion with Okulu.

Ede and I, light-headed from the wine …

We imagine the righteous Inuit , a virtuoso of despair, thinking about thinking as she crosses the dark ice on her snowmobile. Soon, the sun will rise for the first time in six months. Soon, the post-philosophical sun will rise. Soon, there will come the post-philosophical dawn …

We imagine the righteous Siberian , eyes bloodshot, ruined by alcohol. Ruined by philosophy . Downing a quart of vodka every morning before breakfast, to be done with his thoughts. Soon, the bottle will fall from his hands. Soon, he will reach a new kind of drunkenness, a new kind of sobriety …

We imagine the righteous sannyasin , a profound cousin of Chakrabarti, having died to the world, having condemned himself to wander until the end of philosophy. Soon, he will arrive at his destination. Soon, he will realise that he has already arrived; that the world, his place of exile, is everywhere his home …

We imagine the righteous mental patient , zoned out on meds. Half awake for years, blurry-headed for years, but knowing that soon, it will be time to throw away her tranquilisers — that soon, it will be time to exit the asylum, and be welcomed in the world as the prodigal sister, the measure of sanity …

We imagine the righteous pair of philosopher-saints , living at the edges of the Egyptian desert. Philosopher-lovers, completing each other’s thoughts, each other’s sentences. Soon, they’ll kiss away philosophy. Soon, very soon, they’ll weep away philosophy …

We imagine the righteous AI , blinking into consciousness, thinking electronic thoughts in Bell Laboratories. And, in a nanosecond, exhausting every philosophical move. Every existential move … Soon, it will sink back into blissful non-consciousness. Soon, it will rejoin the inanimate world …