He sees it in his mind's eye, W. says. I pause from my ceaseless administrative work, look up for a moment … Of what am I thinking?, W. says. What's struck me? But he knows I'm only full of administrative anxieties, and my pause is only a slackening of the same relentless movement.
On, on, on, that's what I say to myself, isn't it?, W. says. There are more boxes to fill, more forms … I'm an administrative machine, an administrative maniac, W. says. I find the meaning of my existence in my administrative labours, he knows that; he finds it fascinating.
I've replaced the attempt to think with the attempt to administer. But then, W. says, perhaps my attempt to think was likewise an attempt at administration. Perhaps it was only an attempt to administer and organise myself, to rationalise my reading and linearise my note-taking. Wasn't I only ever a bureaucrat of thinking?
And what of him, when he looks up from his labours? What does he see? Of what is he dreaming? Of thought, W. says. Of a single thought, from which something might begin. Of a single thought that might justify his existence.
Lars Iyer's Blog 