Aweh, Dear Ruminants and Groupies
The Oracle has spoken
Every month since January, I have received the same automated email.
I have known for some time that I will retire at the end of December. I have no objection whatsoever. Indeed, I suspect retirement may be an excellent arrangement for both me and the university. There comes a point when making way for the next generation is probably in everyone’s interests, particularly the next generation’s.
Nevertheless, there is something wonderfully sinister about receiving a monthly reminder of one’s impending termination.
The latest arrived at 02:34 on Sunday, 1 November. Somewhere in the bowels of the university’s information systems, Oracle had stirred from its electronic slumber to remind me, yet again, that my days were numbered.
The subject line was reassuringly mundane: Employment Details.
The message was rather more ominous.
Dear Bruce Young,
Your term of employment is coming to an end on 31 December 2026.
Perm-Temp – Permanent
Terminaton Date – 31-DEC-26
Reason – Retirement
There followed a warning that my Oracle responsibilities would be terminated. Should I somehow be resurrected, I would need to contact the CNS Help-desk to have them reactivated.
I wonder whether the help desk has considered extending its services to include resurrection more generally. There could be quite a market.
After decades of education, professional endeavour, accumulated knowledge and occasional moments of actual usefulness, my institutional existence has been reduced to a few lines of computer-generated text produced by a machine that cannot spell termination.
Even better, Oracle classifies me as Permanent while specifying the precise date on which my permanence will cease.
Apparently, permanence now comes with an expiry date.
I find this all rather delightful. There is no grievance here. Quite the contrary. But the relentless, humourless certainty of Oracle has got me thinking about the much larger business of termination.
After all, Oracle is merely a minor subcontractor.
And so, as 31 December approaches, I find myself contemplating the Terminator.
Not the muscular Austrian with the alarming sunglasses.
The real one.
The Terminator is already here
The Terminator has been stalking us since birth.
He terminated our infancy, childhood, adolescence, and that unfortunate period of early adulthood when we believed ourselves immortal and extraordinarily knowledgeable.
He subsequently dealt with our youthful good looks, athletic prowess, professional ambitions and, in some cases, our hair.
He terminates relationships, careers, businesses, governments, reputations and entire civilisations.
Occasionally he gives notice. More often, he doesn’t bother.
Some terminations are welcome. Others are devastating. Quite a few only reveal their merits in retrospect.
But these are merely interim terminations.
There is a final appointment.
And it is not a retirement interview.
Obliteration, dear Ruminants. Obliteration.
Not redeployment. Not a new chapter. Not an exciting opportunity to explore alternative ways of contributing to society.
Obliteration.
The entire extraordinary universe inside your head. Memories, fears, ambitions, grievances, loves, triumphs, humiliations and thousands of utterly pointless opinions.
Gone.
The very consciousness in which they existed extinguished.
That remarkable phenomenon whereby a collection of atoms somehow acquired the ability to contemplate its own existence simply stops.
No internal monologue. No wondering what to have for dinner. No indignation at bureaucratic stupidity.
Not even the satisfaction of discovering you were right all along.
And the really offensive part?
The universe couldn’t give a shit.
The Earth continues rotating. Galaxies continue moving. Somewhere, a committee convenes to discuss something of no conceivable consequence.
Your departure doesn’t register as a rounding error in the cosmic accounts.
For creatures so invested in their own importance, this is a spectacular insult.
Perhaps the bastard is doing us a favour
But here’s a troubling thought.
What if the Terminator, monstrous and indiscriminate though he may be, performs an essential service?
Imagine a world without termination.
Nobody dies. Nobody retires. Nobody relinquishes power. Nobody is obliged to recognise that their ideas are obsolete or their contribution no longer required.
Of course, people could voluntarily step aside. But human history suggests that those enjoying power are seldom enthusiastic about relinquishing it.
Politicians remain in office indefinitely. Business executives accumulate ever more wealth and influence. Academics defend theories already questionable when Newton was a boy.
And bureaucrats attend the same meetings, applying the same procedures to problems they’ve never understood.
Forever.
Christ almighty.
Our species already demonstrates a spectacular capacity for self-importance within the relatively modest time available.
Imagine what we could achieve with eternity.
We would accumulate wealth, power, grudges, titles, honorary doctorates and increasingly elaborate explanations of why civilisation could not function without us.
Institutions would calcify. Ideas would stagnate. Every position of influence would be occupied by someone who got there first and refused to leave.
The world would become a gigantic old-age home, run by the same increasingly self-important bastards who had been in charge for centuries.
Termination enables renewal. Businesses fail. Political leaders depart. Scientific theories are displaced. Generations disappear, taking their accumulated prejudices and certainties with them.
None of this makes losing someone we love any less devastating. The Terminator’s useful services are cold comfort at a funeral.
But the larger point remains.
The Terminator may be the ultimate anti-monopoly regulator.
And unlike most regulators, he cannot be bribed. Even in South Africa.
Donald, you’re fired
Which brings me, inevitably, to Donald Trump.
There is something cosmically entertaining about a man who achieved television fame announcing You’re fired! discovering that termination isn’t exclusively his prerogative.
Trump has devoted considerable energy to celebrating his own magnificence. Buildings, golf courses, aircraft, merchandise and political slogans all bear testimony to the enduring importance of Donald J. Trump.
But the Terminator is stalking Donald too.
Indeed, the American electorate has just delivered a delicious foretaste. On 3 November, voters handed control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats.
Donald will undoubtedly have views on this.
The Terminator will be unimpressed.
The Twenty-second Amendment already imposes an inconvenient limit on Trump’s presidential ambitions. But constitutional restrictions are administrative trivia compared with what awaits him.
He could name every building in America after himself. Gold-plate the Statue of Liberty. Declare the laws of thermodynamics unconstitutional. Announce that entropy is a radical-left conspiracy and demand that the universe MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.
Entropy wouldn’t give a shit.
There will be no negotiation, executive order, or special dispensation for exceptionally successful individuals with enormous television audiences.
No Truth Social proclamation declaring the outcome rigged.
The final termination isn’t an election that can be contested.
It’s obliteration.
Trump can bully institutions, denounce opponents and demand loyalty. But he cannot bully the universe into granting him an extension.
One might almost feel sorry for him.
Almost.
The little Donald inside us all
Before we become too self-righteous, however, there’s an uncomfortable complication.
Trump’s self-importance may be spectacularly theatrical, but the underlying affliction is universal.
We all carry around a smaller, less flamboyant Donald Trump.
We believe our contributions matter, our opinions deserve attention and our absence will leave an enormous hole.
We build careers, accumulate qualifications, construct reputations and devote extraordinary energy to establishing our significance.
Some of us even write blogs.
Then the Terminator arrives.
The organisation continues. Somebody else occupies the office. Meetings proceed. Problems are solved by others or remain unsolved, much as before.
Eventually, even those who remember us disappear.
Our descendants may retain photographs, a few stories or a treasured possession. In time, these too lose their meaning.
If we’re exceptionally fortunate, our names survive a little longer.
But a name engraved on a building isn’t consciousness. A published paper isn’t its author. A Wikipedia entry is a particularly poor substitute for being alive.
Eventually, even the buildings crumble.
The Terminator is nothing if not thorough.
Permanent, pending termination
And perhaps that is the extraordinary value of contemplating our own obliteration.
It places our ridiculous pretensions into perspective.
The hierarchies, titles, ceremonies, institutional rivalries and struggles for power.
The officials who confuse the authority of their office with their personal importance.
The politicians convinced that civilisation depends upon their continued existence.
And the rest of us, carrying around our carefully cultivated convictions of indispensability.
Temporary.
Every bloody one of us.
On 31 December, Oracle will terminate my university employment.
My responsibilities will be deactivated. Somewhere in a database, a field will change and my professional existence at Wits will become a historical record.
I suspect the university will survive.
I also suspect that I will survive. At least for a while.
There are still questions to explore, things to experience and people whose self-importance I would very much like to irritate.
I have no intention of retiring from being a nuisance.
The larger appointment will arrive eventually. All the achievements, embarrassments, opinions and memories of a lifetime will disappear into the cosmic void.
No help desk. No reactivation. No appeal.
In the meantime, I intend to enjoy the absurdity of it all.
After all, according to Oracle, I am still Permanent.
So were the dinosaurs.
Aweh, Ruminants. Nobody gets out alive.
And thank fuck for that.
