NOTICE TO ALL DASEINS

"God it's noisy in here! How the hell do you put up with this racket every night?"






"How did you know my name was God? No, get off your knees and stop sucking my trouser turn-ups - it was only a joke. What's that you say? Hold on while I take out my earplugs."



"He said: 'how the hell do you put up with it every night?' - the noise he means"


"With great difficulty. I'm pretty certain the loud music has damaged my eardrums permanently. Ah! Here are the drinks. The scotch is for you. Cheers! Down the hatch! Same to you - may your comportment towards death be a long and angst-ridden one."



"What gave you the idea of opening a night-club for Daseins?"



"Well, as Heidegger said: 'Wir sind jeweils ein Dasein,' I thought - 'Daseins? Daseins? Why the hell didn't I think of that before? What a fantastic business opportunity! The field's wide open - nobody's in the market yet - so I bought this old church cheap - there's thousands empty now, and more and more coming up for sale every week. and they're going for Erdnüsse as you know, and I opened it as a Daseinic Cult-Centre eighteen months ago. It's well positioned to cater for the sort of folk who are into this lunatic-fringe activity - we're quite near to the university, and as you know the nearer you get to the university the nuttier they often get - I had the flashing neon-sign made which reads: "The Dancing Dasein Club - We're all Daseins now!" - I don't even have to pay the Inland Revenue because its assessed by the Reverend Blair and his government as a religion, along with Pigeon-Fancying and Post-Modernism and Bush-Worship."


"You mean he said: 'We are at every moment a Being-There'?"


"That's right, and if you have never been a "Being-There" you have never lived ... I mean... if you're not a "Being-There" you're not living... Oh! forget it!

Anyway to get back to the point - if we are all Being There at every moment, I thought I might as well make their Being There Being Here, and make some money out of their drinking which they indulge in so as to lessen the pain that comes as part of their knowing that they are Being Towards Death." If they insist on being so bloody miserable all the time - well let them be miserable here and make me happy.



"So this is some sort of money-making dans macabre then? I must say I admire your enterprise."


"Don't include me in on the damn cult - I'm only a poor businessman trying to make an honest buck - it's them - they think they're all Daseins or some such foolishness. That's why I called it the "The Dancing Dasein Club." You could say that, they are all dancing towards death and I'm making a fair living on the bar-profits when they take a breather from their 'Bobbing-Up-and-Down-There."



"There is one catch though."





"Catch, catch - whadaya mean catch? I can't see any catch I've just done a running total on the bar tills and we've taken $2000 already and it only 8.30pm."




"He means a problem with the Dasein thing - he didn't mean that the 'there' of 'being-there' to mean being 'here' in your club, he mean 'being there' in the world."






"Oh Christ! Don't tell any of them they'll all fly out and book round the world cruises or something - keep it to your self."




"We haven't got 'selves'."


"What do you mean you haven't got a self?"








"I'm a Dasein - so I am a sort of self - it's my partner who has the self, I know that because I've heard him referring to himself as 'myself.'"







"Well how can he be 'himself' and 'myself' at the same time?"






"Well in fact I think he was referring to me."







"But you are a Dasein too aren't you?"




"Yes, I'm his dasein - I when I say 'his' - I mean 'my' ontological partner - my temporal dopple-ganger -  the one I share the fantastic world that Heidegger has conjured up for us - not the guy with the horns - he is just another customer in youe club."."






"So he's got a 'self', whom he calls 'myself,' and he's you  and your his Dasein, and I suppose you're going to tell me he's got a 'soul' too?"
Be careful - it's beginning to look to me that two of you - or four of you [if you count the guy with the horns] have sneaked in and only paid for one ticket each?"




"Oh, yes, he (I mean I) has/have got a soul - he's a churchgoer."







"A 'CHURCHGOER' - Is he conscious?"



"Don't be cheeky - of course he's conscious - I'm talking to you now aren't I?"






"But you're a Dasein not a churchgoing fella - anyway if he (or one of you lot in there) is conscious then that means you guys have a consciousness as well?"



"Sure thing."







"So that means he is permanently shacked up with a self and a soul and a consciousness - what about job-sharing - do he have a meeting before making decisions, or is one of four of you the boss?"



"Normally the consciousness makes the decisions, and I as Dasein have to keep reminding the two others that we're all going to die, and the soul takes the rap."







"What do you mean the soul takes the rap?"



"When he dies…"







"When who dies?"



"The guy who keeps the show on the road - he with the consciousness and the self and the soul, - me if you like - the Dasein."






"But you are not 'me' - the guy with the 'self' is 'me' surely?"




"Oh, whatever!







"Look that poor soul over there dancing with the wooden leg?"



"He's not dancing with the wooden leg - that's a Dasein dancing with his Mitt-Sein, he has a wooden leg and he happens to be a Being-There acting as a  Dancing-Here dancing with a Being-With.  Of course he is a Being-With at the same time that he is a Being-There dancing here and being here with his Being-With."






"What's a 'dancing-there?'"




"It's a Being-There dancing there and being a Being-With with  another Dancing There."







"How can he be Dancing Here if he's Being There?"



"Easy, all 'Being-Theres' can be 'Doing-Things-Heres' or 'Doing-Things-Theres' it all depends." The only difficulty they have is when they try to dance the Hokey-Cokey - they never know whether to be a spoilsport  and stay on the outside of the circle, or to go with the flow and  split their body into two halves showering the rest with blood and gore." If he is a Being-There being there in New York well it's very difficult to be a Being-There being here in London at the same time. So it depends.






"Depends on what?




"Whether they're here or there. Of course."




"But I thought for Heidegger 'Being-There' meant the general meaning of Being Here in the world? What about Neil Armstrong when he was on the moon - he wasn't being in or on the world, he was on the moon - does that mean that he temporally checked in his Daseinhood at Cape Kennedy and collected it when he got back?"


"No don't be silly, it just means that for the period he was on the moon his job-title of that of a Dasein or a 'Lunar Being There' referred to his Being There on the moon instead of Being Here in the world - anyway I think we can take the word 'world' to mean not just strictly the earth, but more or less anywhere one happens to be. Anyway we've got to go now - this particular soul is a bit of a nagger, and its soul's anxious."






"Is that where the name 'Lunatic' comes from, and what is your corporeal landlord's soul anxious about?"



"Your confusing a 'Lunatic' with a 'Daseinatic.'  An easy mistake to make grant you.  Our soul? He likes to call in at the church on the way home to the Heimat for a few moments of prayer - of course 'self' and 'consciousness' have to go along too otherwise it plays on our conscience."







"Conscience? - Don't tell me you've got another passenger-guy in there too!"




"Oh forget it - we're off - see you around.


"Yeah! - See you around - My conscience is getting a bit conscious of how late it is, and the guy I dasein-for will get it in the kneck from his wife.