I wanted to show you something that would give you pleasure
the kind of pleasure I sometimes feel listening to Joanna Brouk or standing in the middle of a gallery in the Met
not focusing on a particular art work
just standing there in the middle of the room
I wanted to show you something that would give you some kind of pleasure before the end of the world
not feeling myself capable of that much then perhaps I thought I would play you a tape of Elizabeth Clare Prophet and her congregations’ violet fire chants recorded from a public access broadcast in my hometown
something I’ve come to call ‘what I saw as a child’
as the repurposed foundation for the death of this planet in X number of years
for there’s little to be done now except love and embrace the silence of our impending destruction as a species
one that was offered the gift of consciousness through accident or divine fiat and has done little with it besides slightly lessen our own suffering over thousands of years
i.e. the bar was so low and desire so brutal
for there’s little to be done now but to await our own destruction as we spend this time together in the presence of each other
this patience then is really all that’s necessary
and not to ‘preach’ or say how the world could be better
it can’t be better
a better world isn’t possible but patience is possible
meditation on a few moments of intense deprivation is possible
perhaps that’s all that’s left
this impoverishment is all we’ve ever been given
a kind of ecstatic reduction
or a ‘feeling called heaven’
that speaks to itself of nothing but a final annihilation that comes quietly tho it remains perhaps forever in the distance
I wanted to show you something that would remind you of a time in your life before we came together as a way of finding whatever trace of pleasure or happiness we can in the presence of each other
and not thru a rejection of the world but a radical acceptance of our own impoverishment
so you can welcome this passivity
as a way of reducing both the mind and body to the minimal frequency necessary to maintain this place we now occupy together
as we wait for the true end of the world
which is already here
and yet
has only just begun
we’re only at its beginning
an end
that began without us
but because of us
and through us
and now
no longer needs us
and as such all we have to do is wait as it makes its way slowly thru each and every one of us
and each and every successive generation
this ‘feeling called heaven’
this realization that there is no outside to the world and that nothing is demanded of us to provide a modicum of calm and stability as we sit here in the company of each other
because the world is dying
at least for us
we’ve made it an inhospitable place for us
and yet there’s pleasure to be found here
a kind of pleasure at the beginning of the end of the world
and as you sit listening to my voice
speaking to you
I want you to remember
that this is only the beginning of the end
and that we’re embarking on this journey together
or more accurately
we’re engaged in a process of reduction until this human thing loses any distinction and becomes only one body among many
a material object that may have certain uses but the purpose of which has been severed from it and now merely occupies this space for a time
and in this way we’ve come to regard
this wretched little thing we call our body
this vessel or vehicle
as little more than a seat of pain and frustration
and yet
one that we hold so dear
as it shrinks in terror at night as the room in which your lying down or sitting up and listening to the sound of my voice settles around you with a noise disconnected from any discernible source and for that brief moment makes you all too aware of your own fragility
or at other times
as it swells with anxiety
something you feel welling within you
say
on the train when the arm of a stranger sitting next to you relaxes against your side gently pressing into your ribs as you resist the urge to turn your face and look at the person sitting next to you to acknowledge this physical closeness and inadvertent touch
that wants nothing from you but needs a place to rest
a space at the beginning of the end
that we cannot see
but can rest assured for this moment together in the calmness of its late arrival
and in this way you can think of my words
what I have to say to you
as constructing little more than a side altar
a place for us
to keep watch for those who will eventually come and replace us
only to keep this watch in our place
for we’re little more than surrogates
and as such have come to regard this vessel or vehicle
this wretched little thing we call our body
as something like a coat or sweater placed gently on the chair beside you in a darkened movie theater
holding this place beside you
for a friend who is on their way to meet you
but has been delayed
and whose absence gives you a reason to keep sitting where you are
and as such it occupies this space between what came before and the end that has already arrived
visualized in this way we can see that a beginning to a thing as it occurs in the distance
far from us
and has yet to arrive fully
is little more than a boundary or more accurately a wall to gently lean against
and as we sit together in each other’s company
I ask that you focus
not on the individual thoughts as they pass through your mind
but the structure of your mind as the channel that these thoughts travel through
as the unconscious communicates with the conscious mind and provides you with the meaning to all your interactions with the world
your beliefs and habits
your feelings and emotions
each individual sensation that is little more than a message
traveling thru the very material by which you’ve come to understand
say
the trauma you underwent in being born expelled from your mother’s body only to gradually assume this separate and isolated character which is little more than a faint noise in the background of your mind
as you close your eyes and listen to the sound of my voice
as my voice and your own thoughts become one
and move together
from the foreground to the background
fading into little more than a dull hum or the faint noise of atmospheric static not unlike the hum of the air conditioner that keeps the room you’re sitting in at a comfortable 70 degrees
I want you to remember that this hum is only the muted sound of our collective death
that we patiently embrace
even if unconsciously
and this knowledge
emerges as the foundation of our lives together
that not only will we perish individually
but that our time as a species is drawing to a close
and while this kind of knowledge remains unthinkable
there are moments
here
together
that we can envision the quiet that would exist without us
as the clouds break and the sun glints off pools of irradiated water outside a freeway on-ramp or hospital parking lot in which a few discarded syringes and fragments of plastic tubing bob in the light breeze that travels across a world emptied of our presence
