He let the words drop like a stone into water.
“About ten thousand years ago we become settled,” said Dr. AuDHS. “And about two hundred years ago we industrialize. Those are two upheavals that have changed our lives faster than our bodies and our minds could adapt.”
He made a hand movement as if he were tipping a bowl.
“In the image of the clock: It is as if, in the last minute, gravity suddenly changes – and we are supposed to just keep on running.”
You could hear a quiet laugh. It was not mockery; it was recognition.
“What happens?” asked Dr. AuDHS, and then he answered himself, as if the question were only a rhetorical door-opener.
“We move less,” he said. “Not a little less. Structurally less. And we sit more. Our everyday life is built in such a way that movement becomes optional – and non-movement standard.”
Hans thought of the deckchairs. Lying down had been therapy at the Berghof; up here lying down was luxury. Sitting was everywhere. And now someone said: Sitting is deviation. Comfort became the error.
“Our diet changes,” said Dr. AuDHS. “More easily available calories. More processed. More constantly. More sugar, more white flour, more ‘always possible’. The question is no longer: How do I get food? But: How do I prevent food from permanently rolling over me?”
Hans inwardly saw the buffets, the altars of sugar, the foam pieces; he saw the popcorn cart; he saw the ice cream bar. And he thought: Rolling over. Yes.
“Alcohol becomes permanently available,” continued Dr. AuDHS. “The occasional intoxication becomes regularity. And the scientific tendency of recent years is shifting clearly: The less alcohol, the better – especially when it is regular.”
He said it without moralizing, and precisely because of that it seemed moral.
“Money becomes the dominant medium,” he said. “Money makes exchange abstract. And thus it becomes seductive to confuse money with meaning. Money is a means. Not an end. And yet many live as if more money were automatically more life.”
Hans thought of his desertion, of the life of luxury, of hotels; he thought about how expensive escape is.
“Mass production makes consumption cheap,” continued Dr. AuDHS. “And thus buying becomes the standard answer to an inner vacuum. Not because we are stupid – but because it is easy. Immediate. Available. Without risk.”
He paused briefly.
“Industry creates new burdens,” he said. “Fine dust, noise, constant stimuli. And at the same time: technology that takes movement off our hands. Escalators, elevators, cars, delivery services. It becomes possible to live an everyday life in which the pulse never rises above one hundred.”
Hans saw how someone in the room involuntarily felt their own pulse, the way you do when you notice that it exists.
“And then: screens,” said Dr. AuDHS. “First television. Then the internet. Then the smartphone.”
He did not hold the smartphone up; he did not need to. It was in every pocket.
“This is important,” he said, “the smartphone is a great tool. It can enable education, relationships, work, creativity. But it can also be the most efficient machine for killing time – without us noticing. Not with force. But with convenience.”
Hans thought of “pastime”. Killing time. Making time short. They were two sides of the same coin, and both smelled of modernity.
“And now we see the result,” said Dr. AuDHS. “We have created an environment that constantly offers comfort, calories, stimuli, and distraction. And we have a nervous system that was built for scarcity, movement, community, and meaning.”
He paused, as if he wanted people not only to hear the sentence, but to feel it.
“That is the core problem,” he said. “Not that we have too little. But that we have too much in the wrong direction. Too much availability – without meaning.”
The word “meaning” hung in the room like a soft chord.
Hans looked outside again. There was meaning, he thought, because nothing was available there except what is there: light, green, wind. Inside everything was available: water, wine, lectures, plans, rings, powders. And now someone said: Meaning is missing.
“Now,” said Dr. AuDHS, “comes a perspective that is so simple that it is easy to underestimate it.”
