H. Adler - Panorama

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.