Story for performance #469
webcast from Sydney at 05:58PM, 02 Oct 06

it kind of melts on contact
Source: David Sanger, ‘White House tries to paper over cracks’, New York Times, Washington Post in Sydney Morning Herald online, 02/10/06.
Writer/s: Ross Murray

Let us speak of something, or should I say, some thing. That is more what I have in my thoughts. I don’t like talking about ‘it’. Because what is ‘it’ but a tiny word that stands in for something, anything. ‘It’ is so abstract. ‘It’ could be a sub-atomic particle, the whole world, the universe, existence…

That’s why I prefer to use ‘this thing’. This gives the thing some substance.

I think, standing before the thing, though this thing never really appears in front of you in a real way, a ‘hard copy’ kind of way, existing in and of itself, you become transfixed, enthralled. It makes sense.

You can stand or fall for this thing, my friend.

I’m not trying to be deep, intellectual, if you will. I just say what I see, or in this case, perhaps what I, maybe everyone, cannot see. I’ve not had the secrets of the world revealed to me. Nor do I have the gift of prophecy. Spirits don’t speak through me.

This is no riddle, my friend.

What can this thing mean to a person, or indeed, many people? Can you possess this thing? I suppose the ultimate and most poignant question which has to be asked is—can you ever own this thing? And what is ownership anyway? At this moment you cannot answer because you don’t know what I’m talking about! What am I talking about? What do you want to hear? What should I tell you? Should I tell you I think this thing doesn’t exist? Perhaps this thing is a mirage? Or maybe I should use that old cliché—that this thing is a beautiful lie.

You can touch this thing on some, maybe many, levels, but you never really make contact. Sometimes trying to touch something makes that thing disappear. Two people travelling towards each other—the nature of this travelling can take many different forms—when they collide, they fly apart. They can vanish.

This thing is bigger, and smaller, than all those things, and if you believe, that holds real meaning until meaning changes shape and crushes itself flat and useless.

But I’ve misled you. This hasn’t been my intention. When I talked about the ultimate question before I was being a little presumptuous, because really, there is one more question, and such that it is, this question is a personal question. This thing that I am talking about, this ethereal presence which creeps into the recesses of your being, takes root and blossoms or causes infection.

Can you name this thing?

I call this thing, Reason. Think on this.

It stands to reason…
…but this thing, reason, kind of melts on contact. Do you see? Because everything stands to reason when reason is fading beauty, when reason is a bloated belly, a gradual encroachment, a disease. When reason is logic driven by money.

Being reasonable…
…melts on contact, when the conclusions drawn are atonal, are chipped and split fingernails in mass graves, are collateral damage.

Within reason…
…melts on contact, when a darkness has enveloped you, when you’ve fallen in love with love, when everything is within reason.

Like I say, this is no riddle.

Naming this thing implies ownership, and again as I say, can anything ever be owned? Can Reason be owned? Can you make this thing yours? Can you make others bend to your reason, and thereby own them as well? Can you make them see reason and convince them your course of action is true, acceptable, right, and just? To accept an organised madness. To believe in an orchestrated mess.

I think, my friend, sadly, yes. And, sadly, no.

What happens when Reason meets Reason? Supernova. Infinite connections created and obliterated in nanoseconds. Chaos. Every day reason meets reason and annihilates itself in the process.

There’s a reason for everything…
…melts on contact, when reason is built on the shifting, expanding, chaotic sands of an endless cosmic desert, warped and shaped by the universe’s thrashing winds. Reason creates chaos. As we reach out to touch, name, own reason we create chaos.

Can you see it? Can you see it, my friend? I see a sort of anger filling you. Perhaps now you do not call me ‘friend’ anymore. We clash, we fly apart. We are atoms. I prove my point to you, perhaps. Where once there was a mutual acceptance, a reason for us to converse and share our views which are similar, because of this reasoning which I have laid out here before you, no longer is there order between us. My reasoning has produced a rift, a tear, between us, a kind of chaos. What we mutually have touched, has melted, and is now gone, even if for only a nanosecond, and this cannot be changed.

I see you want to argue with me. Can this but only prove my point when you try to reason with me that what I say cannot be true? Be reasonable, you think to say. But this can only mean that you think me unreasonable, that I cannot be reasoned with. That I am mad, and of unsound mind. And yet could I not find someone, somewhere on our hallowed flyspeck in the universe who could concur with my reasoning, or that I could convince? What if more who support this view join me, and this view becomes sound judgement? Then who is mad?

Ah, do not worry about it, my friend. Don’t become so dark. I do not mean it! Do you believe me? I ask too many questions. I’m crazy in the head! Too long I spend sitting in the sun drinking coffee and tea with my friends. We are still friends, are we not?

Adapted for performance by Barbara Campbell from a story by Ross Murray.