H. Adler - Panorama

The situation for humankind is everywhere the same, particularly if one looks at the world for what it is, with all its surface illusions, which indeed have their own reality, since they are tied to the outer and inner conditions of humanity on many levels. Even if you look beyond such illusions and manage to avert them, the heart cannot ignore them and indeed knows, despite it not being to its advantage, that it must still take joy in and suffer these illusions, its despair and resignation growing ever deeper, there being no way out but to face matters as best you can. No one escapes the tragic, even when it’s forgotten for a moment, which is what looking is for, consciousness emptying itself as one looks on, while in contrast that which is suffered, and which functions as an image to be taken in by other viewers, serves the purpose of letting you know that you don’t experience pleasure and agony alone. This is a conception of man as observer and observed, as subject and object of the panorama, though it is only an illusion, for in fact what occurs to one and what one grasps, or at a minimum what one perceives, is that there is no longer any panorama, it appearing to have disappeared amid a series of alternating and penetrating movements and actions, it indeed having done just that. However, isn’t it obvious that the individual remains cut off from his surroundings despite such a process, if in fact he has not been killed? If indeed a man survives and can look at himself the way others do, then Josef’s idea of the panorama prevails, namely that one can see others but never reach them.

On these assumptions, even if they didn’t know it, great thinkers have based their teachings, though they have never admitted it to themselves or to the world, or so Josef thinks, though he recognizes a great flaw in his thinking, as it is undeniable that human beings form relationships in which they do indeed come together with another, the panorama dissolved which was nothing but an illusion, though Josef still doubts that the borders between people can be dissolved, there always being something to prevent a seamless merger, there being no such thing as a complete union, for that would amount to a murder, the only exception being connections that are formed through media, and that is something imperfect, the media is the equipment, the machinery, the mechanism of the panorama. The panorama is the mediator that is inserted between human beings. That which cannot pass from one being into another is the body of life, the construction of the panorama. The world itself is a panorama and remains always in opposition to that which names itself, that which knows itself, that which wishes to assert itself and which also perhaps asserts what it is. Thus in life there is a dualism in which the panorama constitutes matter and essence constitutes spirit. Essence never entirely becomes matter, and matter is never essence, they being finally beyond each other’s grasp, the one remaining estranged and distant from the other. Therefore it is the task of matter to hinder a complete union. Both principles transcend each other, alienating humankind, preventing each other from triumphing as long as life goes on. Yet this principle is not satisfied with just being true in itself. It plants as well an unshakable bitterness in one’s essence, causing it to be consumed by fear and unable to know how to insert itself into the panorama. One realizes that every attempt by oneself or anyone else to gain a foothold in the construction of the panorama can only lead to pain. No kind of idealistic or materialist philosophy is of help here, for philosophy certainly cannot solve the puzzle and cannot point toward any way of avoiding the conflict or solving it. Neither type of system can escape some falsification of the facts, they having instead to proceed violently when they encounter insurmountable obstacles, namely that reality does not adapt itself to what the teachings want it to be.

Theoretically one could ponder the possibility of some kind of synthesis between both systems, but the moment reality refuses to bend, any such synthesis becomes moot. The nature of reality will only tolerate the existence of both principles next to each other. This is a not a solution but rather a resolution that allows the understanding of both principles, and yet it gives rise to the vital question of how both principles can be reconciled in order to resolve the conflict between them. Josef wonders whether both principles can be followed along parallel lines, perhaps each developing on its own, or whether there is an unknown principle, something not yet in existence, that would indeed allow for a synthesis or another solution, though such a third principle could not be squared with reality and the world as it is. Only the supposition of God and his intervention could support a belief in the possibility of conquering or changing the world as it is. By this Josef doesn’t wish to feed the nonsense of commonly held beliefs about religion, for their conclusions give the lie to their assumptions. Such religion has produced no findings that cannot be found by other means. And such religiosity has mangled the genuine problem at the heart of religion, especially when it proffers a solution, but not a method of fulfillment that allows for a way to break through reality as it has always been conceived. This is why everyday religion ties its promises to death. It remains separate from life, insofar as it calls itself a religion, which then remains hidden behind each deeply mystical saying. Above all, religion has never addressed humanity seriously in itself but has always addressed the individual, which isn’t enough, especially when so much is promised in this manner. That is why everyday religion is just another image in the panorama, and — how monotonously repetitive! — images remain out of reach, they being simply seen and experienced but never reached.

Who knows of any way out? The view presents itself, but it’s better not to attend to it, it for once needing to be enough, perhaps being different outside, one forgetfulness able to exchange with another forgetfulness, everything immediately there when the view changes as it grants the feeling of life, there being no need to speak any more of difficulty. It is good not to be naïve, even though one holds the fool’s cap at the ready nonetheless, Josef needing only to think back a bit when there was the emperor with his white beard, the last year of the war when Josef was still living at home, everything taken care of for him, he not knowing why he had to take part, no one having asked him, as he indeed was a part of a surround. That’s the way things were thirty years ago, then came the tender lovely days in Umlowitz, intimate and peaceful relations followed by the time in The Box, the first difficult trials popping up, it soon becoming clear on what track history was traveling. Then for the first time Josef felt discord with what he experienced, but no one asked him what he felt, just as no one ever asked him about anything, for that is the way it was — the way it is — certainly a shallow, indeed a horrifying, irrefutable truth, nor does it help that he wanted it to be different in order to pursue a dreamed-of better world, one such as he enjoyed in hiking and camping with the Wanderers, for there he felt himself among others like him whom he thought he understood and felt a part of during that time of naïve pride, each day filled with cheerfulness. It had been a long time since he felt that, the happy gatherings having become meager affairs, most of the boys having quit the troop, the hiking club having disbanded, after which Josef found himself filled with a conscious pride, as he began to read and ponder matters continuously, the unattainable seeming near with the figure of Johannes, who meant something before Josef’s rising distrust, while most of the members of Johannes’s circle demonstrated how something marvelous could so easily dissolve into the shallow and the ridiculous, though once you left the tower you entered a hopelessly disturbed world, its chaos sweeping over you. Josef wanted to take on such a world on his own, but there was no escaping it, thus causing him to be consumed by the worst kind of self-deception, for even if it were possible to help himself through such deception it did not please him for long, because as soon as the years arrived that led the way to the Second World War oppression returned to the country, the handling of individual people often manifesting itself as crass and senseless, it not mattering what he did, fate had already begun to play with him, taking charge of him, he having been taken charge of. Now all that is over, though even this can be a deception, especially if Josef remains undisturbed by it all as he rests in the castle park at Launceston.