I am aware that it is possible to create the self if certain simple procedures are followed. This can be done – there can be no doubt about that. No doubt, no doubt, let there be no doubt about this! May the doubters hold their tongues. It can be done if certain procedures are followed, and adhered to very carefully. If they are adhered to very carefully at all times. People may be angry at me for saying this – they may be shocked and they may be offended. What black arts are we talking of here, they may ask? What sinister knowledge is this? I may be reprimanded for not discoursing upon higher matters than this, when there are so many higher matters upon which I could discourse. Instead I turn my attention to the infinitely odious and sinister suggestion that it is possible to create the self; the shocking suggestion that it is possible to engineer – by dark and forbidding means – the existence of that most loathsome of things, the concrete identity. What next, people may ask? What next? Where will this lead? Where will we go from here? We have achieved a new low, and what forbidden territories might this lead us on to? I’m aware that I am sailing in dangerous waters here. Dark and dangerous waters. I am fully aware of this. Do you really imagine that I do not know just how murky and treacherous these waters are? Play with fire and you will get burnt, you may say. Play with mud and your clothing will become soiled. And is that a good thing, to have one’s clothing soiled? Is that desirable? Play in sinking sand and you may sink without a trace! There will be no sign of you left, no sign at all. You will be in the subterranean realms then, you might warn me. Deep down in those subterranean realms. The abhorrent darkness of the bottomless abyss. The existential tar-pits of the tormented homunculi. I am aware that it is possible, that is all that I am saying. I am not advocating it! I am aware that there are ways and means, and we must not be afraid to acknowledge this. We must have the courage to face it. We must not shirk the knowledge…
