He smiled briefly. It was a smile that did not flatter but warned.
“Children live in the here and now,” he said.
A few guests smiled. One could hear something of longing in the smile.
“As a child,” Dr. AuDHS continued, “I didn’t have to look for meaning. The meaning was there: presence. Play. Curiosity. Joy. Relationship. When something was boring, I left it. When something fulfilled me, I lost myself in it.”
Hans thought of his own childhood – it was, strangely enough, not warm, not cold; it was correct, bourgeois, well-groomed. And he thought that perhaps he had never lost himself, but had only ever complied.
“As an adult,” said Dr. AuDHS, “something is added: duty. Responsibility. Wage labor. Organization. Things that are not automatically fun – but that are necessary because they carry our life.”
The word “carry” was well chosen; it had something physical.
“And with that,” he continued, “meaning-making begins exactly where I can choose: in my free time. In my shaping. In my goals.”
He paused for a moment.
“A modern word for this is flow,” he said. “I call it that today – and I deliberately phrase it simply: Happiness is the union of two states: euphoria and hyperfocus. So: joy and immersion. Fun and concentration.”
Hans felt how the ring on his finger – if it had been able to speak – would have nodded. Euphoria, hyperfocus: those were words that smelled of AuDHS, of the acronym that was more than a name.
“Only euphoria without focus,” said Dr. AuDHS, “can tip into boredom. Because I do stimulate, but I don’t dive in. Only focus without euphoria can feel like compulsion. Because I do function, but I don’t live.”
He said “don’t live” so quietly that it was hard precisely because of that.
“Flow arises,” he said, “when both come together: when something really interests me – and at the same time challenges me. When I sense: That is me. Here I am awake.”
Hans thought of the moment in the GYMcube when the dumbbell was heavy and yet the body wanted to; he thought of the counting, of the log, of the noting. Awake, yes. But was it life? Or was it optimization?
“And from that,” said Dr. AuDHS, “follows a practical task: I have to find out which activities both delight and captivate me at the same time. And I have to build my life so that I get as much of them as possible. This is not romanticism. This is life architecture.”
Life architecture – a word that sounded like a draft in the music room.
“A central word in this lecture,” he continued, “is diversion.”
