Then Dr. AuDHS stepped up to the lectern.<\/p>\n
He did not come solemnly, not like a priest; he also did not come hastily, like a manager who is on a tight schedule. He came the way someone comes who knows the room as his medium: with a naturalness that is neither vanity nor shame, but profession. He wore \u2013 and that was disheartening, because it suited him so well \u2013 a jacket that smelled at once of doctor and of start-up; and on his lapel he wore that little badge Hans had already seen once in the morning in the library, that little badge that did not say \u201cName\u201d but \u201cFunction\u201d:<\/p>\n
Dr. AuDHS.<\/p>\n
He positioned himself behind the lectern, placed his hands on the edge as if he wanted to check whether it was really there, and raised his gaze.<\/p>\n
This gaze, esteemed reader, dear reader, was remarkable.<\/p>\n
It was not stern. It was not soft. It was of the kind one finds in people who have learned both: professional distance \u2013 and private involvement. He did not look \u201cover\u201d the guests, like a speaker who is already in the next sentence; he looked at them as if they were a problem he took seriously. And in this seriousness there lay, as always with him, a fine nuance of amusement, as if he knew that seriousness without irony has something inhuman about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood evening, everyone,\u201d he said. \u201cNice that you are here.\u201d<\/p>\n
He made a small pause \u2013 not out of uncertainty, but as if he were setting the tempo.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to talk today about a dilemma that many of us know,\u201d he continued, \u201ceven if we rarely call it that. A dilemma that seems paradoxical.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did not look at notes. He had some \u2013 you could see it from a tablet that lay next to the microphone, black, flat, silent; but he did not use it. He spoke as if he were speaking from an inner script that had been written long ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live in a time of abundance,\u201d he said, \u201cand yet an astonishing number of people feel inwardly scarce. Scarce in calm. Scarce in meaning. Scarce in genuine joy of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans felt how his ring on his finger \u2013 one could swear it did \u2013 grew warmer. A reflex perhaps, an illusion; but illusion is, as we know, one of the most reliable realities.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that is exactly where,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS, \u201cour topic begins.\u201d<\/p>\n
He leaned forward a little. He did not do it to threaten; he did it to create closeness. The red column next to him shone as if it wanted to support him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live in a saturated society,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the vast majority of us, the basic needs are covered: clean water, food, a roof over our heads, clothing, medical care. We do not have to fight every day for bare survival.\u201d<\/p>\n
He let the sentence stand as if it were a foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet many of us are constantly on the move,\u201d he continued. \u201cNot just \u2018very busy\u2019. But inwardly driven. The calendar is full. The phone is full. The to-do list is full. And still: inside something is empty. Or restless. Or both.\u201d<\/p>\n
You could hear someone in the room set down their glass, a small clink that sounded like a comment in the silence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spend a large part of our time serving the expectations of others, fulfilling procedures, playing roles \u2013 often in jobs that do not really fulfill us,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd even when we have free time, we experience something strange: we are stressed and bored at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
He smiled briefly, not at the people, but at the absurdity.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can that be?\u201d<\/p>\n
He left the question hanging in the air as if it were a bird that did not want to land.<\/p>\n
\u201cA large part of the answer,\u201d he said, \u201clies in what is called the hedonistic hamster wheel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans thought of the hamster wheel. He thought of curves, of rest halls, of the monotonous order of the Berghof \u2013 and of how the wheel there was different: not consumption, but illness; not buying, but temperature. But a wheel was a wheel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe run,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS. \u201cWe work. We earn. We consume. We are happy \u2013 briefly. Then it fades. And before we even notice what is happening, the next desire arises. And the next. And again from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
He made a small circular motion with his hand. It was almost childlike. And it was very precise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hamster wheel is not just \u2018buying\u2019,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt is a mechanism: a little high. A short kick. A quick peak. Then normalization. Then emptiness. Then the next impulse.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said \u201cimpulse\u201d with an emphasis that revealed he knew the word not only from psychology, but from himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdvertising and media reinforce this,\u201d he said. \u201cThey train our attention on things: clothing, cars, technology, luxury goods, services. They do not just sell products \u2013 they sell promises: \u2018If you have this, then\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
And now \u2013 here something happened that one could, if one is strict, call theater; if one is mild, pedagogy: he made a short pause, as if he were hearing these promises inside himself, and then he continued them like a chorus.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026then you are more beautiful. \u2026then you are freer. \u2026then you are more successful. \u2026then you have finally arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n
The word \u201carrived\u201d sounded in the music room, in this room of transitions, like a joke.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we often buy things we do not really need,\u201d he said, \u201cand pay for them with something we never get back: lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans involuntarily looked outside. There was time, there was green, there was a world that could not be bought. And yet he sat here, in comfort, in the speech, in the optimization.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd science,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS, \u201cis quite clear at this point: pure consumption, pure hedonism \u2013 twenty-four hours a day \u2013 does not make us permanently happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
He raised his index finger, not in a lecturing way, but to mark something.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven people who could afford everything do not live in a permanent \u2018more\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cNot because they could not, but because it does not work. The system gets used to it. The stimulus becomes normal. The level rises. The bar too.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked into the room as if searching for the bar that hangs invisibly above the heads.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need more than consumption,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And now his voice became a tone warmer, almost \u2013 but only almost \u2013 pathetic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need goals. We need meaning. We need a structure that not only keeps our life busy, but fulfills it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans heard the word \u201cstructure\u201d like an old song. Structure was Berghof. Structure was rest cure. Structure was time. Structure was also the ring.<\/p>\n