Ahmed, Camille.
Camille, as usual, is smoking a cigarette and sitting at the edge of the stage. Ahmed is in the audience. At first all we hear is the faint sound of Camille’s transistor radio.
AHMED. Tell me, Camille. What are you doing there? What’s your goal?
To the audience:
I ask you, ladies and gentlemen: what could possibly be the goal of a chick who sits here smoking in public and doesn’t say a word? What’s up with that?
CAMILLE. Hey, give me a break! Stop busting my chops, OK? I can do whatever I want!
AHMED. Sure, whatever you want. But what’s the goal of whatever you want? Philosophers call that purposiveness. It’s a pretty great word, purposiveness. It can be interpreted in a number of ways.
Improvisations on the word purposiveness: porpoise-iveness, purple sieve nuts, percussive nose, etc.
Philosophers, for their part, construe it as follows (pedantically): the purposiveness of something is the end pursued by that thing, the goal toward which it tends according to the laws of its own nature. For example, the purposiveness of a fox like me is to get into the chicken coop; the purposiveness of language is to communicate with other people; the purposiveness of elections is to decide who’s going to run the government. It’s a purposiveness where in the end you’re not too sure about what your end was or which end is up. In elections, when your purpose is to run for office with the end of running the country, you end up running things into the ground and, in the end, giving yourself and everyone else the runs. Fundamentally, when you get right down to it, this half-assed imitation of politics is nothing but a big pain in the ass. If you see what I mean. The purposiveness of the Jacasse law concerning those whose papers aren’t in order is to kiss the asses of the stupidest and most frightened among those who do have their papers in order. It says: show me your papers and I’ll show you what you’re worth. The general idea being that people’s brains should turn into confetti. That’s the purposiveness of the Jacasse law on the Frenchman and the foreigner. It’s an idiot’s purposiveness, but a purposiveness nonetheless. So then, what’s the purposiveness of Camille smoking her cigarette in front of us? Huh?
To the audience.
Ask her, you guys: “Camille! What’s your purposiveness?”
CAMILLE. You know, you’re really starting to piss me off, with your purposiveness! What’s wrong with just sitting here passing the time? Why should I have a purposiveness? No, seriously, look at me! Do I look like someone with a purposiveness?
AHMED (climbing onto the stage). Let’s try an experiment here, in front of everybody. To figure out your purposiveness. Go stand in the corner of the platform.
CAMILLE. Why not? But I promise you that standing isn’t a purposiveness. Especially not when a dog like you is asking me to do it.
AHMED. Fine, whatever! Since my purposiveness would be more like having you lie down.
CAMILLE. Some philosopher! The only purposiveness he knows is getting chicks in the sack!
AHMED. Wonderful! She’s found the purposiveness of all purposiveness! Because, for all intents and purposes, sex is what it’s really all about at the end of the day. So that’s Camille’s doctrine!
CAMILLE. No, that’s guy-doctrine! A slight difference! What you’re talking about is the purposiveness of the purposiveness of dudes! That’s not my purposiveness, bub.
AHMED. Fine, so let’s continue with the experiment. I’ll go over to the other end of the platform, like so. And you walk quietly toward me at a diagonal. Go ahead.
CAMILLE. Don’t make me laugh! Crossing a stage at a diagonal, yeah, that’s really gonna have purposiveness! If that’s purposiveness, a bear turning around in its cage has more purposiveness than anybody!
AHMED. The question of what the bear’s goal is when it turns around in its cage is one of the most important problems in philosophy. Figuring out the goal of anything that turns around, generally speaking, is an extremely difficult problem. What’s the goal of planets, what’s the goal of galaxies, what’s the purposiveness of everything turning in the universe? It’s a tough nut to crack. But for now, let’s focus on Camille, who doesn’t turn.
CAMILLE (walking forward very slowly, at a diagonal). Yeah, but there are plenty of guys who’ve made my head spin.
AHMED. I’m sorry not to have been one of them. Come to me, little Camille, come closer … See! The purposiveness of your movement is me.
CAMILLE (stopping suddenly). Uh-uh, no tricks! OK, maybe I’m walking toward you, since you asked me to, and I’ve got nothing else to do right now. But if you’re trying to insinuate in front of all these people that my purposiveness in life is you, let me make one thing perfectly clear: cut the crap! You better not take me for a bimbo.
AHMED. No, not in the least! These are just preliminary exercises on purposiveness! Now turn around and go back in your corner, still slowly.
CAMILLE. I feel like I’m modeling nightgowns in public.
AHMED. Hey, not a bad idea! You wear nightgowns? What are they like?
CAMILLE. Fat chance you’ll ever find out.
AHMED. Alas! In that case, let’s put this lecherous purposiveness aside. The current goal of your walking is to return to where you were.
CAMILLE. That’s a purposiveness I know all too well: ending up exactly where I started out. In life, most of the time, I think: here you are, Camille, back where you started.
AHMED. But, if you’re complaining about it, that means it’s not your purposiveness. When you’re following your purposiveness, you’re happy! That much is certain. Camille’s purposiveness is not always to be ending up back where she started. OK. Now come back to me.
CAMILLE. How long is this going to last, this stupid-ass exercise?
AHMED. Until it’s fulfilled its own purpose, which is to discover your purposiveness.
CAMILLE. Well, then, there’s a hidden agenda: my purposiveness turns out to be the purposiveness of a stupid-ass exercise.
AHMED. Now go back to your corner.
CAMILLE. Thanks for giving me permission!
The play of goings and comings continues for a bit. Improvisations on its variation, its acceleration, etc. Suddenly:
I’m sick of this! Why are you getting on my tits like this again? Can’t you just leave me alone? There I was, listening to my music, spacing out, forgetting everything, and then this shitty Arab has to descend on me with his purposiveness! Who do you think you are, after all? Is your purposiveness to muck up the world with words, or what? Can’t you shut up for one second? You couldn’t just leave your purposiveness bullshit nestled in the folds of your brain? People won’t put up forever with being made canon fodder for your words. For a second it’s fine, they go back and forth in your speeches like they were in the middle of a swarm of mosquitoes, but in the end it’s just crap! It’s mega-crap! Stick it up your ass, your purposiveness! And don’t come bugging me again, or I’ll kick your ass.
She exits, furious.
AHMED. What a tornado! … Well, finally, we know what Camille’s purposiveness is. We’ve seen it in the flesh. We’ve seen her desire, her true desire. Her goal, her true goal. Her terrible goal. Which is to not have a goal. Camille’s purposiveness is just this: to be struggling constantly to preserve the right to not have any goal. The purposiveness of nonpurposiveness. … This reminds me of a German philosopher, a guy from the eastern front, all the way at the edge of the Polish pampas, at least almost. Immanuel Kant was his name. He said that what’s beautiful is what seems to have a purpose, but doesn’t. A sunset, for example. It’s as beautiful as if it were created on purpose, but in fact it wasn’t created on purpose at all. There’s no point to it. This guy Kant said: that which is beautiful is like a purposiveness without purpose. Like Camille. That’s why Camille is beautiful. Purposiveness without purpose. A sunset. I’d like to become her end. I’d like to be Camille’s purposiveness. But, since her goal is not to have one, I’d have to look like the absence of a goal. It isn’t so easy to look like a total absence of a goal. To embody the end of the end.
Improvisation on this theme: looking insignificant, embodying the absence of all goals.
I’m going to start practicing! Ah! What a lot of problems we’ve solved today! Camille’s purposiveness and, as a result, my purposiveness too: which is that Camille should desire in me the supreme embodiment of the total absence of any purpose in existence. This is going to require really serious training. And thanks for helping! If you see Camille, you can lay the groundwork. Tell her that, since she chewed me out, I’m so aimless I don’t even know which end is up. Tell her that I’m totally on board with being the ultimate in purposiveness without purpose. Tell her that Ahmed is the goal of a beauty that has no goal. Camille’s goal. Because one of my particular purposivenesses is never to get discouraged. Ever. Whatever the end may be. Even if achieving my end means ending it all. Well, see you later!