There is something entirely lacking in you, W. says, although he’s not quite sure what it is. Something which, for all his shortcomings, W. nevertheless possesses. But what is it? Shame – is that the word?, W. muses. A sense of shame? Anyone else would have stopped doing what I do. All that writing on the web! It’s incredible, for W., who would never do such a thing and can’t comprehend anyone who would.
It’s endless, he says, it just goes on and on. And the same thing over and over again, he says. There’s something missing in you, isn’t there? What do you suppose it is? Is it shame?, W.’s not sure. Perhaps it’s a more fundamental monomania, a kind of overpowering obsessiveness. You don’t stop, do you? On and on it goes. How can anyone be interested? Even you aren’t interested, not really, are you?
Perhaps it’s a kind of reflex, W. muses. Some kind of automatic behaviour, of the kind exhibited by those insects who continue to mate even when you cut their heads off. Because there’s no intelligence to it, W. says, there’s only a conditioned reflex, that’s all. Why don’t you stop? No, really, why don’t you?
Don’t you have anything better to do? Couldn’t you occupy your time otherwise? I tell it takes up barely any time at all. But even that time, says W., couldn’t you find something else to do? In the end, W. says, it’s because I crave adoration, that’s his theory, though even he doesn’t find that very persuasive. You need to be loved, he says, he’s always said that.
Then, still musing as we walk up the hill into the town centre, he reminds me of my great hopes for the internet. A new Athens, wasn’t that it? A new Jena?, he asks, laughing, knowing I said nothing about Athens or Jena. Ah, what’s it all about?, W wonders rhetorically. Why am I so deluded? Why won’t I listen to sense?
There’s a short Kafka story, W. reminds me where a man in a great hurry gets lost on the way to the station and asks a policeman the way. Gibt sie auf!, says the policeman, give it up! That’s what you should do, says W.: give it up!
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