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For You, who teach me to redefine my goals by questioning me!

The sun has failed me, just like you – as it shines or doesn’t shine, regarding the sun. It’s been raining all day; the sky is cloudy and gray. And under these adverse circumstances I started my journey from Klagenfurt to Fürnitz, started it and finished it. Yes, I traveled in one train, from a given point to a clearly defined destination. Sometimes it’s good to have such clearly defined goals because it takes the pressure off.

In the last moments, since that, our first meeting, I also had a simple, clearly structured goal in mind: to come to you, to exchange ideas with you whenever possible, to live from one reunion to the next, to grow with each reunion and in each subsequent encounter, just enough remained open and unanswered to make me want to do it again. A simple, clearly structured goal, over and over again, over weeks and months. A goal and a reward. Of course, my normal life continued, went on, and probably had to go on, if only to bridge the time from one time to the next and to make it bearable. Life had to go on. We had to keep working, keep breathing, and just keep living. The sun rose and set as always, the days, weeks and months came and went, as always, completely unaffected. Nothing had changed, and yet nothing was the same as it was before. My view and therefore my approach to the world had changed. The sun rose and set differently than before, the days, weeks and months came and went differently than before. I was full of vigor and energy, because at the end of all my efforts you stood, at the beginning and at the end, starting point and destination, you were like a protective shield that kept all harm away from me, like an invisible cloak that enveloped me You were still there, and I had a goal.

But now you are so infinitely far away, infinitely farther than these 350 km that separate us, infinitely more permanent than these three things that you still have to do or have already done anyway or never had to do in the first place. So I stand, aimless and meaningless, in this place called Fürnitz, helpless and helpless, at the mercy of the rain and my sadness, now that I no longer know when I will reach this goal, whether I will achieve it, not even whether this goal is still achievable for me or has already eluded me.

I let myself drift aimlessly and pointlessly through the streets of this place, which I call my intermediate destination, on a journey that I have just divided into these intermediate destinations, which in themselves have no functions. Can I really call it a goal? Yes, with you I have found my goal, because with you I know that I can arrive as myself, that you take me in and accept me, but here, here I am nothing more than a stranger among strangers, if not one at all Outcasts. Life washes past me and I find myself in the role of an impassive spectator.

Aimless and pointless – did I just smoke or should I smoke again? – did I just drink a coffee, or should I finally drink one again? I look up, and just as I try to bring back, even force back, the gaze that wanders away to get lost in the distance, in the distance in which I assume you are, by concentrating all my mental forces, which are probably also necessary, to achieve nothing more than to perceive the immediate surroundings, which I don’t want to perceive.

Any environment is right when you are there. No environment is suitable if you are not there.

Force myself to focus. Reference point? Yes, I need a reference point, a small point where I can stop in order to slowly move into immediacy, to wake up from my stupor, from my madness, to get closer to you, to see a goal in it. “Bahnhofstrasse,” I read on a sign. I now know that I am in Fürnitz on Bahnhofstrasse. But does that have any meaning for me? Is that even relevant in any way? Slowly, very gently, I begin to notice the houses, begin to distinguish them from each other, as the seamless flow ends and each thing regains its independence. I perceive that the things around me begin at a certain point and end at a certain point and have clear structures within themselves. But how did I get here? I sit down at the nearest coffee, order a large mocha, strong, black, hot, as I’m used to, because I’ve now made the decision for myself that I haven’t had coffee or smoked a cigarette yet, and after years as a result of diligent conditioning, my body reports the most severe caffeine and nicotine withdrawal with this decision. You can rely on it, at least that.

I’m sitting here in the train station coffee and thinking that there are trains at the station, trains that go somewhere, at some point, and there will even be one of them that will go to you at some point or at least to the region where you are staying. Damn madness, even trains have goals, no, not just any goals, but goals that are clearly defined in time and space, like the ones I had and lost with you, who also have goals, at least this one that you told me about told you to at least do these one or three things that you have to do.

The coffee runs hot down my throat and I begin to feel myself, begin to regain myself, begin to arrive here. But how did I get here? No matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I torture my memory, the path I took from leaving in the morning to this point where I sit now, that path seems to have been erased, as if I had never been there gone, and yet I must have gone, otherwise I could not have reached this point.

But doesn’t it really matter how I got here? I am here now, and from here on I will reorient myself, and another thought awakens in me, a thought that comes to mind for the first time, even though it was so obvious, always has been. It was clear to me ever since I knew you, you were my goal. But I never asked myself, indeed I never even thought that this question could exist, whether I was also your target during all this time. Yes, of course, you were happy when we saw each other. You let me know that you let me feel it. I have probably done you good and helped you further, I think, but I don’t know whether I was your goal, so absolutely and without restriction, and this thought is followed with frightening and at the same time sobering logic by another: Did I ever have a right? to see you as my goal? By taking you as a target, didn’t I strip you of your being and functionalize, rob and depersonalize you for my purposes? It’s shocking how much I have taken over and used you. Sure, the reason was the loudest, and probably also the justification.

We took a path together, decided to walk a part of our life’s path side by side, looking forward, supporting and encouraging each other to achieve the goals that actually set us, to make the effort life presents us with, but more and more I turned my gaze away from this to the front and turned towards you, jealous and demanding, probably also out of fear that this look forward could tempt me to lose sight of you, or rather, it was supposed to prevent you from overlooking me, and that’s exactly where the hubris began.

You are you to me as long as I perceive you as you, and you are no longer so as soon as I assign you a purpose. If you have goals that have nothing to do with me, then it’s not because you don’t want to have anything to do with me, but precisely because you leave me in my being you. You go out and come back, just like I should, and you tell me about these, your plans, intentions and goals, and you can do that because I am the protective space for you from which you can express yourself into the world You can develop and have an impact because I give you space to be.

You are not my goal, because goals are functional endpoints – you are to me the strength, courage, and endurance to achieve goals, and you are to me the freedom that I should be to you. I have become closer to you even though I drove away because I am beginning to understand you. I look ahead. Where can I start finding my new goals? No matter, you are my starting point, and I find courage and determination, and when you come back, as my you, you find my open hand in which you can place yours, to exist together. I spend the night here – thinking ahead and about you, so that I can continue my journey tomorrow, look for new ideas, drive on to Udine, and call it my spatial goal for tomorrow.

From the one whose eyes you sharpen for what goals can be – and you are me.

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