Authors: H. G. Adler
Josef’s thoughts spin in circles, the ancient questions not letting go of him and never letting go of him, even if he wants them to. If only he could finally silence them! For what would it be like if things never changed, if they just continued on this way forever? When Josef was a child in the panorama he never thought about things in this way, he lived continually in the present, day-to-day life structured in such a way that he never had to worry about anything, just as he never had to worry about buying tickets for the panorama, he remaining free of any such worry as much at the conclusion of the show as at the start, the experience having swallowed up the boy, whisking him away and not yet declaring the need for him to account for himself. Instead he was regularly overwhelmed, and in no way attained any consciousness, even if he could begin to perceive the formulation of this consciousness within himself, something continuing to grow inside him which saturated his every fiber and was continual. Josef had only to go along with it all, nothing more or nothing less demanded of him or even possible, and everything was understood, the gift of an irrepressible vitality, Josef found it inexhaustible, he feeling the same even during the most extreme solitude, while even in the grip of seeming doom, his ability to contemplate what he observed spread beyond the searing pain of the sharpest despair, such fulfillment the result of all the reflections taken in of the various views and linkages arising on their own.
Not a pause, but a passage, a panoramic view that allows the eyes to take account, and now Josef is posed or positioned, he readies himself or is readied, he turns himself or is turned, he is answerable to himself and that, indeed, means answerable to fate as well, and when he stands his ground he is no longer tied to certain limited experiences but instead is separate from them, and as a result there arises some apparent progress in relation to how things have been, in reality an exit, whereby nothing more than the question “What now?” is faced by Josef. He has gone too far, he should say goodbye to all his journeying for good and head home … right, but home to where? This question is hard to answer, but it is also idle, since for Josef no return home is possible, that would also mean a step backward and the presumption of a home that doesn’t exist for him, there being no way to feel at home,
but instead something else, a kind of order that allows oneself to find oneself, even if it doesn’t involve finding one’s way back but instead involves indeed finding something, a location, and that is a state of being that presumes habit and habitation, and so it happens, and this stands for what other people call returning home, and is what Josef accepts. In order to get this, Josef needs only to wake up, get up, walk down the few steps below in the park, then out the gate and along the streets into the town, across the square to The Red Bull, then request the bill, ask after the next train to London, then on and on and away, no more tarrying, the return occurring quickly after a couple of days when the current situation is left behind for good.
Yet Josef thinks this is a lie, for he does not believe in the possibility of such a return, even though he knows that he can’t abandon it, but a gulf remains between him and the images of the panorama, he no longer able to press his eyes so tight against the peepholes, since too often he has to peek over at his neighbor. He will indeed not attempt to look behind where the images are placed in their frames and then are sent along, but he grasps intuitively that this has already occurred, and that’s why he has come to Launceston, but nonetheless the sober, dissembling gaze into what’s behind the images is not allowed, as that would break the last law that keeps him attached to his surroundings. He considers a peek behind the images to be an incursion known as death, or no, it’s not the onrush of death, it’s suicide, and Josef has not survived until this day to do that. Josef instead will remain in front of the images, and force himself to, though indeed as a result he will also be behind the images, he only waiting for certain images that present themselves without his having wanted them to, though he promises as well to persist without wavering. He will not close his eyes in front of certain images or turn away from them, he only wants to ready himself for the arrival of certain images that he believes belong to him, knowing that he is attached to the panorama once again.
Josef decides to be grateful for this, for indeed he is generally disposed toward feeling capacious gratitude. He thinks of it as the only response available to humankind in light of our awareness of our own consciousness. Gratitude is likely a result of grace, and then one can say that gratitude is a transmutation of freedom that is granted to essence, a transmutation that shuns arrogance, for man’s freedom is a limited good. As a result, Josef is
able to come to terms with himself, since through this he can think of his freedom as limited by the lack of freedom common to man. Gratitude, at the same time, inverts the freedom of man, it puts sacrifice in the place of pleasure, and most likely the sacrifice is better than the pleasure, particularly since enjoyment is limited in life, as it encounters antagonism and resistance, and ends up admonished for its selfishness, which in turn causes even grace to turn away. Though there is something found in gratitude that never has to wait for grace to be granted, as gratitude is indeed a human answer to grace, but this answer must not look to be expressed in a specific manner, it needs no special blessings or prayers, it being much better that it is felt silently and practiced continually, nor need it worry about the condition of the world as a whole, nor is it tied to the situation from which it arises. For gratitude is pervasive and is not solely attached to the two principles of creation, nor to that which stands outside of creation, there being no border or measure set upon it, as it also cannot be diminished by anything. There is nothing like it, and—for whoever grasps it—it has no opposite, for it is always free and at the same time an entity unto itself. Thus it is the only thing that man can keep hold of in all circumstances, if he wants to do more than only accept things as they are and persist in readying himself for the worst, because gratitude is an activity by which man doesn’t lose anything, by which he doesn’t err and isn’t confused, from which he must not allow himself to be distracted, and which does not impede any other activity. It can accompany everything, exist beside everything, nothing able to influence it, nor does it exhaust human beings like other states or activities of the mind. At the same time, it grants a certain measure of certainty and constancy, and although it is best employed for the sake of everything and for nothing at once—this being neither a play on words nor an audacious comparison—nevertheless it bestows a happiness that is never selfish or fleeting, since it remains free of all vanity.
Thus Josef’s sleep is realized, since he has arrived at this certainty, he is now genuinely at ease and finds in this awareness a solution or a mediation between governing conditions and the unattainable goal. Josef knows that everything is the way it has always been, but in the figure of gratitude he can be free. This is not a random event, nor does it mean that anything has changed or changed for certain, for neither Josef nor the world has changed,
as everything has remained exactly as it always was, though the loss felt in the heart appears to be assuaged. Nor does it only appear so, it’s for certain. Something exists which no longer has to look back at the things of the world, although this backward look remains from here on out, for it has in fact not changed, though there has been a liberation from despair, from hopelessness, arrived at through resignation, in future the heart not needing to be caught up in warnings and fears, action and acceptance taking control of bitterness and confusion. Then what dawns on Josef is that within all anxieties that have been overcome there is much grace that can befall one, because simply to
be
is grace in itself, and he indeed has
been
as often as he has been, he has felt things and lived, and there can be no difference between the value placed on that by him and by another. Good, Josef has lived it all, he is present within himself, he has always stood in the present, and wherever he stood he could only accept it. Therefore he experienced grace, because it was without merit, if not indeed contrary to all merit, and so it is also easy to be thankful. That’s why gratitude is no merit, far from it, but it is also not a duty, unless one chooses to put oneself under the obligation of feeling it.
Gratitude is without compare, but the question of man demands more, it is not the case that now certain kinds of experience will be overcome, nothing in the world having changed in the past hour, such an assumption appearing foolish to Josef, for it would only cloud the view, and therefore Josef is no different. Instead he will simply try to continue to do what he has done thus far, and indeed it is an attempt that he will continue to make. Nonetheless it remains true that he is as dependent on and subject to conditions as he formerly was, whether soon consciously or unconsciously, or soon willing or unwilling. Then Josef decides that after this sleep there will be no escaping this panorama, and as he considers this the fog slowly begins to lift and the view is restored once more, it by now familiar to Josef, an image that will last a good while, such that it cannot depart from him, as it abides and betokens so much. Josef indeed considers whether he has had enough of this view, but then he realizes that it’s not up to him to decide, and so he waits and knows that his weariness will decide for him, he having remembered too much, his emotions not being able to recede so easily, slowly they will have to settle down, in the stillness they will have to die
away. He cannot continue to agonize and wear himself out if he is to remain patient as the abandoned figures visit and ask, have you done enough for us? He has to answer, you brothers of love and hate, it’s not enough, for I have considered you too lightly and profited from you, and therefore I stand too much in your debt to repudiate you. Josef now sees that the abandoned figures, as good or as bad as they were, have bestowed only good upon him through guilt and innocence. Thus he owes them his gratitude, in order that they remain real and not just empty words.
Josef no longer tries to repudiate the dualism at the heart of creation, but there really is no contradiction between dualism and freedom, because no dissociation can continue to exist in the face of freedom. If Josef wants to feel grateful, no dualism can stand in the face of gratitude, for it knows no real contradiction, even if the language has use for the word “ingratitude,” which certainly makes sense and is true, but Josef feels nevertheless that gratitude and ingratitude cannot be set against each other as opposites, no matter how much logic may think they should be. The logical approach doesn’t reveal that there’s a spiritual contradiction between them, such that the spirit does not take its nature from matter, as the spirit is no less and no more a part of reality than is matter, they simply postulate each other through their mere existence. What isn’t a part of the opposition is incomprehensible, and therefore also cannot be logical. If it’s nonetheless put into words, then it appears above all to contradict itself, which is acceptable, though that doesn’t bother Josef anymore. As soon as he recognizes the limits of philosophy that make such questions unanswerable, then he no longer wishes to philosophize about that which is insoluble. Josef finds that philosophy is often refuted by life, which is full of contradictions and cannot be separated from them by any approach, though it doesn’t entirely rest in these contradictions, even if it cannot be freed from them.
Now that Josef has finally slept, there is nothing more for him to draw on for encouragement. He feels safe. He wakes up and looks around him with eyes wide open. Now he waits patiently, awakening takes time, a temporal activity, since it is steeped in memories. Consciousness tries to sense itself, checking to see if it is indeed there. It poses small and general questions in order to reassure itself, and in doing so turns to the past. Every awakening is a trip to a past that must be reviewed if it is to be completed.
Only then is a person awake, after which he attempts his first steps in the new day and turns this way and that, it being good if he goes about familiar activities in order to find his place more easily, all the while new impressions readying him and sending him on his way. Then memory dissolves, though it saturates the subsurface of the new day, which without refamiliarizing itself with this realm would be plunged into chaotic ruins. Now, at last, everything is in order, and many experiences begin to build up, everything renewed as it returns once again, though not at the person’s insistence as he goes on his way, even though he is free and can believe that it is his own way. Then the person sees many potential outcomes as he moves on and is called onward, but he really doesn’t feel like it, since the questions have gone silent in him, having been withdrawn the moment that he thinks he can answer them. Yet won’t he still be pursued, won’t worry continue to haunt him?
Josef doesn’t dare decide, yet it seems to him that it has been decided anyway, since he has nothing more to say about it. He has remained calm and wants to fit in, for the inevitable will occur anyway. It’s a cause for concern, Josef grants, but it also leads one on, as it’s a doubtless certainty, a stream amid constancy that carries on, and in which also worry, also questions, and the insoluble are givens. Man is nothing if he has nothing to protect him, for even that Josef who was robbed by his brothers of his multicolored coat and thrown into a pit had to put on something before he was sold to Potiphar. Neither spiritual nor physical poverty releases human beings from the need to clothe themselves, and thus it was the nadir of inhumanity, a sign of the most shameless murder, that the most loyal of the conspirators stripped the lost ones of their garments and then shot them or slaughtered them, while other conspirators granted their victims a bit of time, though not out of kindness, as after their bath in the sauna they were handed rags, this being, without the conspirators knowing, a sign that man as a result of his having gained knowledge in Paradise had to wear clothes. Man may be humble and humbled, lost or forgotten, but he cannot be unclad, the heart also needing to be covered, about that he can do nothing, whether he is awake or asleep.