“And with that,” said Dr. AuDHS, “we come to a perspective that suddenly makes many things logical.”
He placed his hands back on the lectern, as if a second part were now beginning, and in fact it began.
“Let us imagine the whole history of humankind as a single day,” he said. “Twenty-four hours.”
He raised his head as if he were looking at a clock.
“And our modern life – the way we live it today – that only happens right at the very end. In the last minute. You could say: since eleven fifty-nine p.m.”
He let the number hang in the room. It was precise and at the same time poetic, like a date punchline.
“That means,” he continued, “our body, our nervous system, our psyche – none of that was developed for smartphones, office chairs, constant availability of sugar and stress. It was developed for something else. For a life that for a very long time looked very different.”
Hans thought: The Magic Mountain, esteemed reader, dear reader, was a novel of time; and here stood someone turning time into a clock. He made it small, he made it understandable, he made it into an image. And images, Hans knew, are dangerous: they allow one to believe one has understood.
“I’ll take you along,” said Dr. AuDHS – and here, imperceptibly, he slipped into a language that was less “you” and more “we”; no longer doctor to guests, but human to humans –, “into three large segments of this clock. Not as a textbook. But as an image that shows us why today we so often feel… miswired.”
He said “miswired” and smiled, as if he knew that the word is a diagnosis that at the same time excuses and accuses.
“Since twelve oh one a.m.,” he said, “fundamental pillars have been emerging without which we would not be able to function today.”
And now he began to count, and this counting was not dry, but rhythmic, almost like music, as if the music room had after all gotten its way.
