–One way to run at Heidegger goes something like this.

There is
some stuff here. It’s here. It exists.
–Of course. Who cares?
–As primarily practical monkeys, we don’t fucking care, can’t fuck-
ing care. But that applies to philosophy in general. What do I
care about botany when my dick is hard on Saturday night? Un-
less it helps me get high. Can I smoke my houseplant ? Will it
get my dick hard in the first place?
–Classic Duffenhauer. Needlessly obscene.
–Maybe. Maybe not. Heidegger exists in the same world with dick
pills. Maybe some people have their reasons for keeping philosophy
in the clouds. Perhaps I’ll be punished for my sins.
–I retreat, just to move the conversation on.
–Yeah, so I was agreeing that being amazed or terrified that stuff
exists is silly or hysterical. I mean it’s easy to see how annoying
or useless or pretentious this ontology bullshit can come off. And
Heidegger addressed that, so he wasn’t so head-in-the-clouds to
not realize how daring or foolish he was being.
–OK. So there is stuff. How can this possibly be a revolutionary
statement?
–The ’thereness’ of stuff does not make sense as one more thing. So
the ’thereness’ of anything, of everything, of the world...is beyond
explanation.
–Is this just some kind of atheism then?
–I think it is at least a cousin of atheism, but it’s not so much
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’locally’ against this or that God but the overthrow of metaphysics
in general.
–So existence or being just cannot be explained, not really. So all
kinds of weird new age systems that aren’t even invented yet are
already refuted or revealed as confusion.
–Yes. A case is made for that. A strong case.
–But people will of course continue to believe in God and various
New Age religions.
–Of course. The bean-eaters don’t count for much.
–Your take on this being issue seems close to Sartre’s.
–It’s not really ’my’ take. But yeah. Existence screams. It’s
beneath all explanation. It’s ’mystical’ in some elusive, perverse
sense of the word.
–Or what some of the mystics were trying to say.
–Could be. And Wittgenstein had his own words for the same
thing maybe. To say it is to utter a tautology or something simi-
larly ’empty.’
–But I don’t think grasping the idea will save anyone’s soul.
–Yes and no. It’s something a person could weave into their iden-
tity. Total bullshit can preserve a soul for a little while.
–Fair enough. But I can see how Heidegger could get caught up
in politics.
–Yeah. In general, we need drama, some way to impose on others.
We need significance, status. And merely bringing the news that

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we exist won’t cut it.
–I can imagine some kind of New Age phenomenology class being
marketed to consumers, and Heidegger himself made some cutting
remarks. Given his reputation as a teacher, he could have got
himself paid this way.
–I can tell that he’s ultimately one of your heroes.
–He’s got some great stuff. You can fuck up in ten thousand ways,
but if you leave some strong enough marks, people will commune
with your ghost anyway. And your mistakes are fascinating too.
Why those mistakes?
–I can see there’s something deeply Socratic in this approach to
being. It’s a generalized antimetaphysical point which can be
understood as a humble confession that I don’t know and I can’t
know.
–Right. The aim is laudable. What is there, if anything, that
properly evokes wonder and maybe terror? We can of course be
amazed at the structure of this or that thing, but that anything
exists in the first place is, it seems to me, THE EVENT.