I am pleased that you want to hear this story. I would be honest if I told you that I am indifferent to someone wanting to hear my story. Nonetheless I am pleased that it is you and not just anyone who is listening to me.

 

​In German my native language I would now talk about the difference between the formal and the non formal use of “you“. I choose the formal ‘you’ “Sie“ if it‘s okay for you, to maintain a certain distance. The “Sie“ is foreign to me, but you are also foreign to me. In such intimate stories, I prefer to maintain my distance in order to protect myself as much as  possible from your judgement.

​

But I will come back to this later, if you are willing to follow me until then. Please don‘t feel obliged to stand here and feign interest. If my story bores you, please leave, you are under no obligation, please do what you think is worthwhile with your time.Well, I am beginning to focus too much on you, as I tend to do, although you are here to listen to me. I will elaborate on this later. 

 

Well, I shot myself.

For 7 days, I injected my hip. Once in the morning, once at lunchtime and once in the evening. I multiplied. I wanted to become more. 

This was not the kind of becoming that I sometimes seek, because my nothingness is too obvious to me. So that I don‘t remain nothing. Because nothingness is too lonely, too little, for the fact that I am matter.

​​

Well, I wanted to become more. More me than is good for me. 

I have to mention briefly that I hate injections. I‘m afraid of injections. As a child, I collapsed when I saw syringes. As a boy, I collapsed when I saw syringes. To this day, I still quake when I see or think about syringes. To tell you this story I am experiencing agony.

 

I had to reproduce. I had already agreed to reproduce and my morals didn‘t allow me to behave selfishly.

To multiply I had to inject myself, there was no other way.

I didn‘t multiply for myself. 

I am happy with my current self. I was happy with my former self. 

But if my help is needed I will help. 

Because to be honest, I don‘t just help for its own sake, I can‘t deny that it gives me a certain satisfaction. ​

​

Selflessness and kindness bring me joy. 

​

Selflessness and performed self-sacrifice allow me to step out of the indifference that the world demands and makes endurable. 

The world demands this indifference in order to offer protection. To protect from complexity, madness and vastness. 

Despite my excessive devotion, I long for dullness to endure being. Dullness and haze simplifies. 

However, only selflessness and courtesy allow me the freedom to step outside, to interact, to open myself to the world without judgement. 

To talk about the haze would be too much at this point, especially as this digression is not conducive to the story, because right now I am sharing a clear moment.

However, I would like to briefly mention that forgetting immensely helps to maintain one‘s own illusion. Accepting tragedies, showing oneself affected, thereby exalting oneself, feeling good and returning to everyday life with this elevated feeling. Forgetting makes problems evaporate, just as they came. Without having to solve them or even find a way to deal with them. Thanks to it‘s factor time, forgetting works similarly to indifference. This is how I get along without having to get through situations. 

This leaves a distance that one can deny to oneself. 

​

Apparently, I need a change from the haze, from boredom and weariness to the melodramatic theatrical, but also to the supposedly self-sacrificing, selflessness. A middle way would be slanderous, a half-hearted attempt without feeling satisfaction.  

Well, I‘m talking about myself again. 

Actually, this story isn‘t about me. But it‘s hard to talk about someone you don‘t know. It‘s hard to tell a story about someone of whom I only know needs help. No name, no age, no gender, no nationality. No information on political views, no information on interests, commitments, family. 

But it is precisely this lack of all attributes that creates a field of tension that makes my decision incredibly simple in advance, while afterwards overwhelming me and leaving me reeling.​

The main character remains unknown. 

Consequently, this story is less about the person it‘s supposed to be about and more about me. 

Even if I don‘t want to draw attention to myself. Because that‘s not in my nature. Talking about myself would be an exaggeration of myself, a search for the spotlight, for which my other nothingness has no justification. 

Of course, the spotlight is nice from time to time, as attention from the outside enables contact with the outside. Imposing on others is what bothers me and often keeps me behind the curtain. 

However, in order to make contact and be liked, one has to present oneself. 

I would be lying to myself if I said that sympathy wasn‘t important to me. Because it is, but without courting it with words or overt actions. Rather, I try to leave small traces in order to give the opportunity to penetrate the core of my being to those who are genuinely interested. 

I only hope to be read by the right people. In order to achieve this, it seems to me, my cover remains sealed until I have supposedly been fully read. 

Your sympathy is important to me, you should know that, not because of this story I‘m telling you, but generally. If you meet me later, I‘ll be happy to receive your sympathy. 

​

Maybe I‘ve taken on too much, otherwise I probably wouldn‘t be telling you this story.

Now I have to deal with the consequences.

And telling this story helps. As long as I can tell and you listen to me. In fact you don‘t even have to listen, the telling alone helps. Thinking, on the other hand, only helps to a certain extent. Once this point has been reached, thinking becomes rather distressing. Even before I started wanting to become more, thinking became distressing. To be honest, I always follow my gut when it comes to things like this. Or self-imposed morals. In these moments, morality has no interpersonal purpose in its true sense, once again it‘s about me.

​

In this case, it was again possible for me to act selflessly, to serve. Serving is not exempt from self-interest either, because in general I feel inferior to people. For my littleness - do you realise how I can now speak of my littleness? - it gives me more satisfaction to serve so as to to make greater things possible for others. 

The climax of what can be accomplished, life at its best possible outcome. 

​

Serving allows me to exalt and triumph solely on a moral level. I am happy to leave the materialistic sphere to others, I care for inner peace.

Being superior to everyone allows me an inner serenity, safety and security within myself. Because I am good. Even better, I am good and no-one knows it.

Morality makes it possible to judge so as not to be judged, as does the aforementioned haze. 

However, I have to admit that I often use an ideological pseudo-justification instead of an alleged objective justification. 

Of course, I am not allowed to claim selflessness as a moral norm, as it does not benefit the individual, even if I constantly hope for altruistic motives in individuals. That is precisely why I am in favour of moral norms that have not yet achieved universal validity. 

 

​I want  to explain to you why I favour distance. It‘s quite easy to explain, I‘m sure you‘ve already worked out why. The truth is, I‘m shy. I‘m afraid. Without a closer relationship with you, I can continue to rely on forgetting. I‘m happy to accept judgement, but it‘s easier for me accept with a certain distance. 

​

But I wanted to talk less about myself and more about our main character. Perhaps about how we found each other. Later on I might come back to our conversation. 

I embarked on this journey without thinking about reality. Rather in hopes of never having to be a part of it. Once again out of a motivation that I would describe as moral. Hoping to never have to act morally as a consequence. Just the pretence of being able to act satisfied me. 

​

Well, I got a phone call. The content is irrelevant. But the call came with a responsibility, a call to action. Which I followed without question. And so the injections began. A small ordeal, likely subordinate to the purpose. The few injections, the little bit more me. That would probably be bearable. Considering the purpose. Besides, I was in too deep. Morally tied down. Firmly promised to our main character. That little bit more me. Likely to be bearable. ​

​

During the seven days of 21 injections, the pain increased at the same time as my satisfaction. 

Don‘t get me wrong, I don‘t believe I am a masochist, although I cannot rule it out

yet, but the pleasure of serving increased equally. 

Until, mad with panic, I was allowed to take my seat, filled with pride. 

It smelled pleasant and everyone was very nice to my multiplied me, but the fear of inadequacy and of not having enough me forced me deep into the cushions. I managed to let out a pathetic cry for help before I was able to sit up, soaked in sweat and deeply ashamed. But as I said, everyone was very nice. 

​

Then I finally began my hero‘s journey. I did my best not to notice any of it. That‘s why I can‘t tell you too much about it. But I felt the inside of my blood vessels, thin wire slowly and meticulously scratching cave paintings on the inner layers of my arteries. I guided the brush, but I couldn‘t put it down. Carved in, left to the archaeology of memory. To this day, my brain continues to excavate these places. 

I still remember exactly how I was used as an object of study and was handed around between curious heroes for inspection. And the brush continued to paint.

​​

I sat semi-recumbent and tried not to be present while I became less and less me. My many selves went on a journey. A me out of me, and matter belonging to me without me into me. Whilst the actual me, cold and separated and packed in plastic, waited for our main person to make them become a little bit me. And I felt myself becoming less, less me than I was when I got the call. 

​

I got up, received a cup with a cute ladybug on it and was dismissed. I took the train home. My task was completed, now I just had to wait. But waiting was painful. Not on a mental level. But a very physical pain occurred waiting. The pain lasted a week. I wasn‘t used to so little me. Once again I had to become more. But this time without injections. 

​​

To come back to our main character, I wonder how valuable this delay is in the indifference of this world. Of course, individual needs and desires arise in the face of finiteness, but is it worth prolonging life, and if so, for whom, at what cost? I refuse to accept a simple answer to this question.

​​

But it was only after my journey was supposedly complete that I asked myself whom I had actually served.

And of course I wish to find myself in the best of all people, but realistically I assume that I will find myself in a ‘hostile’ person. That my benevolence for good deeds will result in a rat‘s tail of negative consequences for the world. These concerns remain.

And even before these thoughts occurred to me, although I thought the journey was already complete, I realised that I was much less me than I had thought. Instead of resuming my life as a whole me, I found myself having to carry on as half a me, half a me that took days to become whole again. In tears and pain, unable to carry on, to feel, to enjoy, my body was busy making more me again. 

​

Now I will tell you briefly about our one and only conversation. Our main character remained as anonymous as before. We both needed translators, even though we were able to speak. The translators were there to make our voices unrecognizable and to ensure our distance. But apart from the conditions, our conversation was great. I was brief, as my lack of voice irritated me and prevented me from speaking out.

​

​

But what our main character said to me was great. I was on the verge of tears and soaked up the words of gratefulness. I savored them and felt happy. Entirely happy.

But surprisingly, and this is a reason why I am telling you the story, the feeling faded after a while. 
That alone is not surprising, but I noticed that the pain remained. It remained and completely overshadowed the feelings of happiness.

The pain was not directly on a physical level, at least only rarely. There were reoccurring moments of pain. Like flashes of lightning, surprising and intense. But above all a deep-seated, frightened pain that fears itself. 
The feelings of happiness have subsided. 
What remains is the pain and the doubt. 
die Träume der Welt

What remains is a feeling of no longer wanting to help, of no longer wanting to serve. To exchange selflessness and sacrifice. To exchange for an ego that protects me.​