Where we'll be talking about morality and nature...the attempts over the years to find moral guidance in the world around us...or justification for being amoral, of course...
In the meantime, I thought I'd share a bit of a play I've been working on with you. It's an adaptation of The Cone-Gatherers by Robin Jenkins I was working on in Aberdeen last week with a splendid team of actors...
This particular speech, maybe, betrays some of my own pre-occupations with such questions:
DUROR
It’s everywhere. It’s all around…it’s in you and me and the trees and the stone…it’s all the one thing. It’s all the one substance. Matter. You see? Every creeping thing. You can’t fight the truth…you have to submit…you have to agree…you have to say…yes…
(He stops suddenly. Then suddenly starts again)
if there’s no God, and no soul….if all there is…is trees and stone…then there is no me or you…is there?…not really… And when we die…we vanish so you can’t believe it was ever real, that there was ever life, that there was ever…
(Pause. He starts again, mechanically)
…people get shot in the head…don’t they? …their bodies are still there…but where are they?…they’ve gone…bodies in a pit, covered in sweaty earth, naked, white, rotting…what are they? What is the difference between a dead man and a living man…can you feel that?…can you touch it?…no…you can’t…it’s not a thing…
(Sudden pause. Sudden resumption)
…what happens if we just stop? What happens if we just stop? When we die…or have a stroke…or get hit in the head…if we can stop being ourselves, what are we? Hah? What are we?
(Pause….he’s got something. The following is more considered, rising to triumph)
We pretend to be ministers or doctors or soldiers or fathers or wives…we just pretend…it’s not true…we know it’s not true…we know we’re nothing…we’re not anything…we’re the world… we’re all made of the same stuff…we know that’s all we are…and sometimes we can see it, we can feel it… there’s nothing…nothing but the forest and the fear and the pain and the joy and the feeling…the feeling…that we’re all one thing…I’m not me and you’re not you…it’s all just…we feel it….
(Pause. He slides into despair and terror)
And we’re scared …we don’t want to be alone…we don’t want to know , we don’t want to see it…but sometimes we do see…we can’t help but see ourselves, and there’s nothing for us…no hope, no joy, no meaning, no purpose, no wars no world no stars no flesh no skin no trees no stones…there’s just …it…this dead…horrid…huge…nothingness…but I see it…I see it now…right now…it’s all lies…all of it…all of it...all of it…
Well...you see the kind of thing...
Come for a jolly chat!
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