of man We can only live through the other one
‘I met countless people, I visited numerous places where, it was said, what we seek had ever been clearly visible to people. However, at the end of each day, I returned to my room, my shabby, bare hotel room. And you can imagine that this emptiness oppressed and almost scared me. Nevertheless, it must have been these impressions, the deathliness of this room, that awakened my consciousness. I began to realise that until now our travelling and seeking did not and could not have any result, apart from the notion how things should not be done (which in itself is very valuable anyway). After all, what we seek is different, works differently from what we understand. It is not somewhere, it is everywhere, even here in W., in this hotel room. There must be a large number of people who seek it, A., just as we do, but many may already have found it, while we are still wholly groping in the dark. We are not solitary individuals or exceptions amongst the rest of humanity. Humanity is a whole. This was what I was always aware of in these overcrowded train compartments. It is good to seek and to travel, but in my view, finding is still something else. Perhaps it is contemplating in an empty room and being taken up into the silence. I would rather express it differently – I would express it as something that has in some way to do with others, because what we seek has absolute value. It should be able to liberate all these people from their pain. It should be able to free them from this age-long, hopeless travelling. If they want to, of course. An impossible task? The notion that we are with many, makes me feel very hopeful! Letter of a traveller, Pentagram 1988, no. 3
26 pentagram 1/2011
